MEXICO 
CITY 


OLIVE 
PERCIVAJL 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 


PRESENTED  BY 

PROF.  CHARLES  A.  KOFOID  AND 
MRS.  PRUDENCE  W.  KOFOID 


Mexico    City 
An  Idler's  Note-Book 


Mexico  City 

An   Idler's   Note-Book 

BY 

OLIVE    PERCIVAL 


Herbert  S.  Stone  and  Company 

Eldridge    Court,     Chicago 

MDCCCCI 


COPYRIGHT,     1901,     BY 
HERBERT     S.     STONE     &     CO 


A  number  of  these  sketches 

originally  appeared  in 
THE  I<os  ANGELES  TIMES. 


TO 

MR.    G.    C.    HOLLOWAY 

IN   MEMORY    OF   A   FRIENDSHIP 
OF    THE    WORK-A-DAY   WORLD 


PRESERVATION 
COPY  ADDED 
ORIGINAL  TO  BE 
RETAINED 

DEC  1 ?  1992 


Tfz. 


FOREWORD 

Such  a  lot  of  people  have  spent 
the  day  in  Mexico  and  have  then 
written  books  about  it. 

My  pre-determination  was  to  be 
original.  But  now  that  I  am  come 
back,  I  too  would  lay  down  a  little 
wreath — not  of  stiff,  magnificent  facts 
and  information  —  merely  of  tender 
words  of  appreciation  and  an  inti- 
mate, if  forceless,  sympathy  for  some 
of  those  strange  phases  of  Life  in 
the  Land  of  the  Noontide  Calm. 
OLIVE  PERCIVAL. 

Los  Angeles,  California, 
January  i,  1901. 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

FIRST  IMPRESSIONS        .        .        .        .  i 

IN  THE  STREETS  OF  THE  CITY         .        .         27 
THE  ALAMEDA  AND  CHAPULTEPEC       .        .    49 
To  THE  FLOATING  GARDENS  OF  TENOCHTI- 
TLAN        .        .        .  .        .        .71 

EARLY    MASS   AND   THE   FLOWER   MARKET    93 
AT  A  MEXICAN  COUNTRY-HOUSE          .        .119 

A  STREET  RAMBLE 153 

PERSONAL  AND  REMINISCENT        .        .        .175 


First  Impressions 


An    Idler's    Note-Book 

MEXICO    CITY 

%0 

FIRST  IMPRESSIONS 

I  knew  very  well  how  the  old,  old 
City  of  Mexico  was  going  to  impress 
me. 

There  would  be  splendid  churches, 
with  long,  glittering  religious  proces- 
sions. There  would  be  acres  of  cen- 
tury-old palaces,  with  musicianers  by 
the  palm-shaded  fountains  and  loung- 
ers in  purple  and  silver.  Every  front 
3 


4  Mexico  City 

yard  would  be  an  enchanting  tangle 
of  aloes  and  cactus  arid  orchids  and 
chocolate  trees. 

In  every  balcony  there  was  sure 
to  be  a  pretty  maiden,  with  a  fan 
and  a  mantilla  and  a  big  comb  of 
real  shell  in  her  blue -black  hair. 

In  the  street  below,  a  masculine 
affinity. 

He,  I  dreamed,  would  be  tall  and 
lightning  -  eyed,  —  with  a  sugar-loaf 
hat,  a  zarape,  a  cigarette — he  might 
have  his  guitar. 

And  there  would  be  duennas  some- 
where and  monks  in  gray  and  bull- 
fighters in  scarlet  and  tinsel.  There 
would  be  gayly-costumed  poor  people 
—not  many,  and  all  light-hearted,  I 
hoped.  They  would,  I  presumed,  be 
drinking  goblets  of  foamy  chocolate 


An  Idler's  Note-Book  5 

or  weaving  garlands  of  flowers  with 
which  to  decorate  their  water-jars. 

There  might  be  a  few  gorgeous  brig- 
ands, with  embroidered  jackets  and 
silver  spurs  a-jangle.  And  (who 
could  tell?)  there  might  be  a  polit- 
ical revolution! 

Of  course  I  could  not  be  quite 
sure  of  everything,  although  my 
hopes  were  reasonably  modern;  and, 
as  a  latter-day  pilgrim,  I  really 
must  expect  one  or  two  refining  dis- 
appointments. Yet  there  was  one 
thing  of  which  I  was  entirely  confi- 
dent. I  knew  that  my  first  view  of 
all  those  dazzling,  enrapturing  land- 
scape arrangements  would  be  under 
the  bluest-blue  sky  and  in  a  blind- 
ing white  sunshine. 

Therefore,    as    we    rushed    through 


6  Mexico  City 

blue  -  green  fields  of  pulque  -  plants, 
dotted  thickly  with  pre-historic  ruins 
and  with  ancient  churches  newly 
whitewashed  and  with  sky-blue  rain- 
pools,  I  preparatively  twirled  a  pair 
of  black  eye-glasses. 

But  alack  -  a  -  day !  travelers  en- 
counter all  the  unusual  bits  of 
weather,  and  we  landed  in  Mexico 
City  (which  for  long  years  I  had 
loved  even  as  I  had  adored  the 
ancient  and  wonderful  city  of  Bagh- 
dad) in  company  with  a  rain-storm. 

Now  this  was  disheartening,  it 
was  nearly  tragic.  I  had  saved 
particular  and  high  degrees  of  en- 
thusiasm for  that  one  first  moment 
— and,  as  a  legitimate  redress,  I  de- 
sired to  postpone  my  first  impres- 
sions until  another  day.  But  Fate 


An  Idler's  Note-Book  7 

was  unrelenting.  The  little  clip  of 
her  merciless  old  shears  sounded 
unwarrantably  spiteful.  I  wanted  to 
call  aloud. 

Nevertheless,  as  we  drove  up  into 
the  city  (with  our  cabman  crying, 
"Sh!  sh!  sh!"  to  the  horses,  as 
though  they  were  hens),  the  beauti- 
ful law  of  compensation  was  every- 
where in  evidence.  The  crooked  old 
streets  were  veritable  pictures. 

Not  dazzlingly  Oriental,  to  be 
sure,  as  they  ought  to  have  been, 
but  of  the  French  Impressionist 
School, — all  muddy  grays  and  browns, 
with  streaks  of  purple  shadow  and 
splashes  of  dull  pink  and  yellow. 
Some  of  the  by-ways,  where  drain- 
age was  an  impossibility,  were  very 
good  bits  of  Venice  without  the 


8  Mexico  City 

gondolas;  in  the  courts  of  many  of 
the  houses  were  little  lagoons;  and 
any  one  of  the  palatial  old  convent 
buildings,  facing  or  backing  upon 
those  narrow  and  gloomy  streets, 
would  have  been  quite  good  enough 
for  a  doge  or  a  Desdemona. 

The  narrow  sidewalks  were  cov- 
ered with  a  fine,  even  pudding  of 
bad -smelling  mud;  the  street-car 
mules  and  drivers  were  plastered 
with  it  and  persistently  avoided  the 
sympathetic  eye.  The  mules  seemed 
particularly  self-conscious. 

But  all  at  once  there  was  no  rain 
— not  one  drop — a  glorious  Mexican 
sun  was  shining  and  the  little  lakes 
in  the  inner  courts  of  the  houses 
were  mirrors  with  charming  reflec- 
tions. The  sun  lit  up  the  mossy 


An  Idler's  Note-Book  9 

tiles  of  the  splendid  old  church 
domes;  it  made  beautiful  shadows 
in  the  deep  doorways  and  under  the 
balconies  of  the  yellow  and  pink 
stucco  houses;  it  brought  out  the 
fragrance  of  the  strange  flowers  in 
the  courts,  brilliant  glimpses  of 
which  were  permitted  through  medie- 
val entrances,  as  the  carriage  poked 
along.  Everything  was  so  delight- 
fully clean  and  fresh  and  beautiful 
— everything  except  the  Mexic  smell. 

The  theatric  streets  were  crowded 
with  people,  but  oh!  such  astonish- 
ingly poor  creatures  and  sorrow- 
ful eyed!  They  were  unspeakably 
depressing.  And  where  could  they 
all  be  going? 

It  was  not  a  feast-day,  it  was  too 
early  for  a  bull-fight;  I  was  certain 


io  Mexico  City 

there  had  been  a  fire  or  a  parade — 
possibly  a  big  free-silver  rally.  But 
in  due  time  it  was  discovered  that 
the  congested  condition  of  those 
streets  was  normal  —  that  it  took 
Sunday  markets  and  certain  of  the 
feast-days  to  bring  out  the  real 
crowds  of  Mexico! 

On  the  muddied  sidewalk,  with 
their  bare  feet  in  the  gutter,  here 
an  there  sat  a  family  of  well-to-do 
peons — clothed  all  in  white  and  eat- 
ing a  combination  breakfast  and 
supper  of  tortillas  with  chili-sauce 
from  a  wonderful  pottery  dish.  To 
a  newly-arrived  gringo,  that  pottery 
dish  and  the  light  in  the  eyes  of 
the  brown  little  children  were  in- 
deed fascinating. 

Driving    slowly  along    and    staring 


An  Idler's  Note-Book  n 

out  in  a  dazed  way  bordering  on 
the  state  of  enchantment,  I  was 
restored  to  acute  consciousness  by 
the  sight  of  a  poor  little  peon  stag- 
gering along  the  slippery  cobbles 
with  a  perfectly  immense  American 
trunk  on  his  back. 

The  wretched  little  son  of  Issa- 
char,  it  was  ascertained,  carried 
dreadful  trunks  like  that  from  the 
depot  of  the  Mexican  Central  to 
the  hotel,  a  distance  of  about  one 
mile  and  a  half,  and  up  two  flights, 
for  exactly  twenty-five  cents,  Mex. 
Oh!  it  was  horribly  unjust,  it  was 
outrageous — and  I  was  at  once  and 
for  the  first  time  intensely  inter- 
ested in  socialism,  labor-unions,  an- 
archy! For  if  that  little  beast  of 
burden  with  an  immortal  soul  should 


12  Mexico  City 

slip  and  fall,  he  would  be  crushed, 
horribly  crushed.  And  all  for  an 
amount  not  exceeding  twelve  pieces 
of  copper. 

I  sat  aghast — such  a  very  little 
peon  and  such  a  very  big  trunk!  I 
trembled,  and  was  chill  with  anxiety. 
I  yearned  for  relative  human  justice. 
I — Oh!  may  the  saints  of  his  parish 
forgive  me  I  That  trunk"  was  my 
very  own. 

At  last,  the  carriage  stopped  in 
front  of  the  hotel. 

It  was  a  new  one  on  May  the 
Fifth  Street,  dating  only  from  the 
time  of  the  Emperor  Maximilian 
and  named  for  a  great  and  brave 
man,  Comonfort.  He  dealt  the  death- 
blow to  the  church  as  a  governing 
power  in  the  State.  (That  sounds 


An  Idler's  Note-Book  13 

so  much  more  feasible  than  is  war- 
rantable. It  becomes  irksome,  I  am 
sure,  even  to  a  great  man  like  Com- 
onfort,  to  live  in  the  midst  of  as- 
sassins known  and  unknown.)  Of 
course  it  was  to  be  regretted  that 
this  hotel  was  not  a  century  or 
two  old,  like  most  of  the  others — 
and  that  it  had  not  been  a  palace 
or  a  convent  of  the  inquisition.  But 
then,  it  was  near  the  great  cathe- 
dral and  the  famous  old  plaza;  it 
was  not  far  from  the  alameda,  and 
every  immediate  prospect  therefrom 
was  lavish  in  the  matter  of  mossy 
church-domes  and  towers.  Ah!  on 
the  other  side  of  that  portal  with 
the  big  iron  knocker— in  that  bal- 
conied yet  somber -looking  building, 
would  I  find  my  first  home  in 


H  Mexico  City 

Mexico!  Was  I  to  be  poisoned  in 
my  chocolatl?  Or  stabbed  under  the 
left  shoulder  -  blade  some  moonless 
evening,  as  I  walked  along  the  cor- 
ridor? 

There  wasn't  any  riot  of  tropical 
plants  in  the  patio — it  was  bare  and 
clean.  That  was  a  distinct  disap- 
pointment. But,  it  was  explained, 
an  esteemed  patron  of  the  establish- 
ment (An  American,  to  be  sure) 
had,  after  an  argument  extending 
over  a  number  of  years,  induced 
the  management  to  dispense  with 
the  garden  of  plants  in  the  court— 
and  its  mosquitoes.  This  explana- 
tion should  have  pacified  me;  I 
should  have  generously  refused  to 
cultivate  the  deep  regret  that  I  did 
not  precede  that  particular  reform 


An  Idler's  Note-Book          ig 

and  the  general  introduction  of 
electric  lights  and  telegrams  and 
bicycles.  And  especially  since  I  got 
there  ahead  of  telephones  and  auto- 
mobiles ! 

But,  I  penitently  confess,  I  always 
regretted  that  patio.  It  was  so  tidy 
and  unromantic. 

The  furniture  was  old  and  Frenchy 
— some  of  it  may  once  have  be- 
longed to  Carlotta  herself,  but  no 
one  seemed  certain  about  that.  And 
then  there  were  actually  two  old 
brass  candlesticks  on  the  writing- 
desk.  I  at  once  realized  that  every- 
thing was  to  be  perfectly  ideal. 
No  gas,  no  lamps,  no  electric-but- 
tons— just  a  long,  green  bell-cord 
with  a  tassel,  such  as  there  used 
to  be  in  all  the  dear  old  English 


1 6  Mexico  City 

novels.  Think  of  the  romantic  thrill 
to  be  experienced,  when  I  should 
find  it  necessary  to  "ring  for  can- 
dles"— just  as  the  terribly  haughty 
Lady  Clarinda  did,  or  the  rector's 
gentle  daughter! 

My  admiration  was  extreme  for 
those  little  old  candlesticks  and 
their  short,  fat  tapers.  It  was  a 
pleasure  of  many  sentiments  to 
write  letters  by  their  soft  and  yel- 
low light  to  persons  up  in  the 
prosaic  States.  Such  are  rare  mo- 
ments; you  lose  perfectly  your  iden- 
tity— you  are  an  enthusiastic  com- 
posite of  ever  so  many  Revolutionary 
granddames  and  early- English  and 
ante-bellum  heroines. 

But,  oh!  the  moral  battle  I  did 
fight  during  my  few  weeks'  associa- 


An  Idler's  Note-Book  17 

tion  with  those  old  candlesticks!  I 
can  lift  up  my  head,  I  can  even 
speak  of  them  calmly  now — for  I 
really  didn't  steal  them.  They  are 
down  there  yet, — presuming  that  the 
next  American  tourist  did  not  carry 
them  off  as  souvenirs. 

Never,  until  I  knew  the  old  ad- 
ministrador,  did  I  suspect  the  capac- 
ity for  even  a  latent  esteem  for  a 
hotel -clerk;  nor  had  I  dreamed  that 
the  American-made  linen  duster  was 
especially  designed  by  an  aesthetic 
fate  to  be  worn  constantly  by  a 
big,  Romanesque  Mexican.  His  slow, 
sad  smile  was  a  fascination — Mr. 
Henry  Miller  himself  could  not  have 
improved  on  that.  Nor  on  his  beau- 
tiful, baritone  and  almost  rever- 
ential, " Buends  dias,  senorita." 


1 8  Mexico  City 

The  administrador  y  on  the  occa- 
sion when  I  stepped  fearfully  toward 
the  key-board  in  the  office,  did  not 
think  to  embarass  me  with  any  of 
the  long  and  occult  remarks  not 
included  in  my  handbook  of  the 
Spanish  language.  There  was  merely 
the  regulation  greeting  of  the  coun- 
try, with  innumerable  stately  bows 
and  lordly  edicts  to  the  vassals  in 
waiting  to  clear  the  way — to  follow 
after  with  my  umbrella,  my  camera 
and  the  few  armfuls  of  old  Mexican 
junk,  whose  possession  made  my 
heart  sing  for  joy,  but  at  which 
they,  poor  things,  looked  almost  with 
scorn. 

And  then  there  was  such  an  inter- 
esting chambermaid.  His  name  was 
Mariano,  and  he  was  a  beautiful 


An  Idler's  Note-Book  19 

character;  but  he  was  so  extremely 
plain  in  the  matter  of  features  that 
it  saddened  one  to  gaze  upon  him, 
if  a  refuter  of  some  of  Mr.  Dar- 
win's theories. 

My  one  great  ambition  in  Mexico 
was  not  to  get  an  audience  with 
Diaz,  the  uncrowned  emperor,  but 
to  have  the  memory  of  Mariano's 
face,  perpetuated  in  a  door-knocker 
to  bring  back  to  the  States.  I  never 
expect  to  see  a  Japanese  grotesque 
with  a  visage  half  so  fascinating  in 
its  ugliness.  To  be  sure,  I  spoke 
the  language  (learned  it  going  down 
on  the  train),  and  so  I  was  the  one 
regularly  chosen  to  find  fault  and 
to  order  the  breakfast,  which  was 
brought  in  from  a  restaurant  by 
the  little  mozo.  He  would,  in  re- 


2O  Mexico  City 

sponse  to  a  jerk  on  that  romantic 
bell-cord,  rush  in  with  a  humble, 
mournful,  " Buenos  dias,  seiiorita"  and 
stand  awkwardly  with  his  little  toil- 
worn  hands  at  position  rest.  It 
was  noticed  that  he  always  rushed 
out  politely  screening  a  wide  smile 
that  exploded  into  unmistakable  gig- 
gles— a  trifle  uncomplimentary  to  my 
Spanish,  which  may  have  resembled 
but  remotely  the  pure  Castilian. 
Very  likely,  I  should  have  hurled 
one  of  the  candlesticks  at  Mariano's 
head,  but  Americans  are  stupid 
about  servants. 

May  the  most  generous  of  the 
saints  reward  the  patient  little  drudge 
— may  Mariano  live  many  years  when 
his  enemies  are  dead! 

He  broke  hand-mirrors,  he  giggled 


An  Idler's  Note-Book  21 

(but  quite  involuntarily)  at  my  col- 
lection of  old  key-plates  and  door- 
keys;  but  he  never  stole  a  thing, 
not  even  the  reddest  of  neckties. 

The  azotea,  or  flat  roof,  of  the 
hotel,  reached  by  the  darkest  and 
shakiest  corkscrew  stairway  (I 
searched  in  vain  for  a  trap-door  and 
a  secret  panel),  was  the  place  to 
spend  a  moonlight  evening. 

Just  the  place  to  wrap  up  in  a 
Spanish  cloak,  exactly  nine  yards 
wide,  and  to  listen  to  the  low  thrum 
of  a  guitar  and  the  singing  of  gay 
old  ballads  of  love  and  war.  (And 
one  there  was  who  deemed  it  fit  and 
proper  that  an  American  in  the 
present  year  of  grace  should  sug- 
gest occasional  refrains  of  "Ha!  ha! 
ha!  Yankee  Doodle  Dandy !") 


22  Mexico  City 

And  then,  as  you  thought  how 
many  old  Spanish  lords  and  ladies 
were  dead  and  turned  to  clay  all 
around  you,  how  agreeably  sad  and 
effective  in  the  quiet  night  were 
"The  Spanish  Cavalier"  and  "La 
Paloma"  and  "In  Old  Madrid/' 
But,  if  your  American  pride  was 
particularly  rampant  and  you  chose 
to  be  less  sentimental  and  to  take 
a  mental  leap  back  to  only  1846-47, 
you  sang  the  high-keyed  songs  your 
grandmother  sang,  when  your  grand- 
father came  marching  home  from 
Cerro  Gordo.  And,  possibly,  another 
— the  strangely  fashionable  ditty  of 
to-day  whose  title  has  been  trans- 
lated into  the  polite  phrasing  of 
the  country,  as  "It  Will  Be  Very 
Warm  in  the  City  This  Evening." 


An  Idler's  Note-Book  23 

Then,  too,  leaning  over  the  para- 
pet, the  azotea  is  just  the  place  for 
dreaming  of  those  old,  old  days 
when  Cortes  marched  along  the 
causeways,  the  Aztecs  tossing  down 
flowers  from  just  such  a  roof. 

That  phase  of  the  dream  is  less 
disquieting  than  the  next — when, 
down  upon  the  heads  of  those  amaz- 
ing adventurers,  the  same  Aztecs 
hurled  stones  and  blazing  arrows. 
Oh!  thrilling  and  very  romantic  is 
the  history  of  the  ancient  city  of 
Tenochtitlan !  What  tiresome,  unfor- 
givable iconoclasts  are  they  who 
would  destroy  our  faith  in  the  story 
of  the  conquest  according  to  Pres- 
cott. 

Where  those  twin  towers  of  the 
old  Cathedral  rise  in  the  moonlight 


24  Mexico  City 

once  stood  the  great  pyramid  and 
temple  to  Mexitl,  the  war-god  of 
the  Aztecs,  daily  bespattered  with 
human  blood.  I  am  near  enough 
to  have  heard  the  wild  chant  of 
the  red-handed  priests  and  the  shriek 
of  the  victim,  as  his  quivering  heart 
was  skillfully  torn  from  his  breast, 
an  offering  to  a  hideous  stone  image. 
I  am  almost  near  enough  to  have 
heard  Cortes  haranguing  his  discon- 
tented men,  or  poor  Montezuma  ad- 
dressing his  nobles  from  the  parapet 
of  his  palace-prison.  Ah!  on  this 
little  azotea,  one  could  dream  a 
whole  star-lit  night  away  and  never 
slumber. 

What  one  does  hear  is  the  clatter 
of  the  cabs  over  the  cobbles  below 
— and  the  occasional  shout  of  some 


An  Idler's  Note-Book  25 

high-hatted  Jehu,  muffled  in  his 
zarape.  Then,  from  near-by  bar- 
racks, come  "Taps"  and  "Lights 
Out." 


In  the  Streets  of  the  City 


IN   THE   STREETS   OF   THE 
CITY 

An  expression  of  thanks  is  really 
due  Mr.  Hernando  Cortes  for  hav- 
ing established  in  Mexico  a  certain 
valuable  precedent. 

Whenever  it  was  insinuated  that 
he  could  not  do  such  and  such  a 
thing,  or  whenever  it  was  pre- 
sumptuously stated  that  he  must  not 
go  to  a  certain  place,  that  praise- 
worthy and  industrious  gentleman 
straightway  did  that  thing  and  made 
a  bee-line  for  that  point. 

So,  when  an  American  resident  of 
Mexico  City  told  me  in  an  ominous 
sort  of  way  that  I  must  not  go  on 
29 


30  Mexico  City 

the  street  without  a  chaperone  or  a 
gentleman  escort — and  when  he  an- 
nounced that  I  could  not  go  alone 
to  The  Thieves'  Market  district,  I 
in  my  heart  muttered  several  per- 
verse things.  Also  I  remembered 
my  Prescott  and  finally  sallied  forth 
— alone. 

What  girl  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury, with  the  dignity  of  America 
in  her  keeping,  is  going  to  conform 
to  an  old  unwritten  law  of  some 
other  country  and  one  never  framed 
for  her  kind?  And,  too,  when  her 
time  is  limited?  Foolhardiness  is 
not  exactly  commendable,  even  in  a 
Yankee;  but  Mexico  is  the  best 
policed  city  on  the  continent,  and  I 
had  no  pockets — for  years  and  years 
past,  I  had  had  no  pockets.  What 


A  Street  Scene 


An  Idler's  Note-Book  31 

was  there  to  fear?  It  is  only  the 
disdainful  foreigner  with  nose  aloft 
who  finds  the  disagreeables. 

Sometimes  chaperones  insist  upon 
frittering  away  immensely  valuable 
time  in  easy  chairs  in  the  hotel 
parlor.  But  had  I  journeyed  to 
Mexico  for  the  one  excitement  of 
counting  and  recounting  dreary  fig- 
ures in  the  wall-hanging?  Was  my 
acquaintance  with  one  of  the  en- 
chanting cities  of  the  world  to  be 
limited  to  a  balcony  view  and  an 
occasional  * '  personally  conducted ' ' 
promenade? 

Alas!  I  had  discovered  disadvan- 
tages in  masculine  escorts.  Not  all 
of  them  are  satisfactorily  civil  when 
you  are  pleased  to  stop  short  and 
stare  at  things  not  in  the  guide- 


32  Mexico  City 

book,  the  stupid  guide-book;  or  when 
you  desire  to  scrape  acquaintance 
with  some  dirty  little  beggar  or  an 
interesting  old  dulce-woman. 

Such  painful  revelations  in  a  strange 
land  finally  induced  me  to  defend 
and  to  sympathize  with  myself. 

Yet,  with  all  the  bravery  of  my 
argument  and  my  convictions,  I 
usually  left  the  hotel  on  my  soli- 
tary tramps  quite  unceremoniously. 
But  my  returnings  therefrom  were 
openly  triumphant — unkidnapped,  un- 
pickpocketed  and  laden  with  price- 
less memorabilia  in  the  way  of  old 
handwrought  iron  and  blue  crockery 
and  brass  candlesticks  and  rosaries 
with  big,  pendant  medals. 

That  radiant  hour  was  not  the 
proper  one  to  confess  that  many 


An  Idler's  Note-Book  33 

times  I  got  lost  in  those  streets 
that  changed  their  names  every 
block  and  that  the  policemen's  direc- 
tions were  in  Spanish  far  too  rapid 
to  be  of  assistance  to  one  of  my 
understanding  and  pride. 

There  would  have  been  no  justice 
in  complaining  that  I  was  much 
stared  at  by  the  inhabitants,  for  I 
stared  so  much  longer  at  them;  and 
then,  too,  they  were  always  good 
enough  to  explain  to  each  other 
that  I,  a  strange  being,  was  an 
American,  and  that  explains  much 
in  Mexico.  I  was  discreet,  being  in 
the  minority — I  admired  openly,  but 
I  veiled  any  astonishment  at  things 
unconventional  from  my  little  point 
of  view.  Once,  once  only,  in  my 
solitary  ramblings,  I  found  just 


34  Mexico  City 

cause  for  alarm,  and  that  was  when, 
in  a  wretched  street  and  on  the 
narrowest  of  pavements,  I  unexpect- 
edly met  a  beggar.  He  was  evil- 
looking  and  drunk  with  pulque. 
But  lo!  he  immediately  flattened 
himself  against  the  building,  with 
a  polite,  "Pass  on,  young  lady," 
and  did  not  push  me  into  the 
horrid  mud-puddle  of  the  street  as 
I  had  so  greatly  feared. 

No  one  was  ever  rude,  and  many 
were  friendly.  I  never  repented  my 
imitation  of  the  Cortes  method  of 
seeing  the  country. 

And  so  it  came  to  pass  that  I 
lodged  under  a  roof  and  generally 
ate  expensive  food — but  I  forgot  the 
pattern  of  the  wall-hanging  and  I 
lived  in  the  streets  of  the  city. 


An  Idler's  Note-Book  35 

Not  so  very  far  away  from  the 
glittering  shops  of  San  Francisco 
Street,  and  very  near  the  famous 
Alameda  and  Paseo  de  la  Reforma, 
you  will  find  the  city's  poor.  Not 
all  of  them,  but  enough  and  in  con- 
ditions so  deplorable  that  a  person 
of  keen  sympathies  speculates  as  to 
the  possibility  of  ever  smiling  again 
in  this  life  while  the  memory  of 
that  poverty  shall  endure. 

It  is  the  hideous  variety  that 
knows  no  hope. 

But  it  is  a  pleasure  to  walk  with- 
out haste  and  to  study  the  build- 
ings as,  in  the  day  when  they  were 
new,  men  builded  so  well.  I  stand 
and  look  long  and  rapturously. 

They  are  principally  old  convents, 
gloomy  and  damp,  converted  into 


36  Mexico  City 

tiny  shops  and  over-crowded  tene- 
ments; the  walls  soft  grays  and  yel- 
lows, with  deep  windows  irregularly 
placed  and  of  varied  forms.  Then 
there  are  always  little  surprises, — a 
niche  high  up  near  the  cornice  with 
an  old  weather-worn  statue,  or  a 
unique  door-knocker  or  balcony-rail, 
or  a  bit  of  splendid  ornament  over  a 
window — sometimes  two  richly-carved 
doors,  fit  for  an  Old- World  palace. 

Yes,  one  block  in  perspective  of 
any  of  those  narrow,  old  streets 
would  drive  an  artist  paint  mad. 
The  poor  Slave  of  the  Camera 
merely  wails  and  loathes  himself 
and  his  art. 

All  this  is  the  effective  back- 
ground for  certain  picturesque  types 
of  humanity.  Humanity  in  rags  is 


An  Idler's  Note-Book  37 

so  extremely  picturesque.  It  is  fre- 
quently hungry  and  sullen,  too. 
Very  likely,  one  would  not  pity  the 
poor  of  Mexico  City  so  much,  were 
they  inclined  to  be  a  trifle  social- 
istic; but  in  their  eyes  you  see  only 
the  unresented  suffering  of  centuries, 
— a  hopelessness  not  to  be  forgotten. 
When  you  walk  delightedly  in 
some  magnificent  garden,  such  as  a 
millionaire  Spaniard  knew  how  to 
beautify  and  maintain;  when  you  are 
supping  at  some  grand  old  villa  at 
Tacubaya;  when  you  are  marveling 
at  the  splendor  of  the  interior  deco- 
rations of  a  dozen  near-by  churches; 
— then  unpleasing  flashes  of  recol- 
lection will  obtrude  themselves,  and 
you  are  sure  to  have  an  uncomfort- 
able moment  or  two,  if  you  trouble 


38  Mexico  City 

to  contrast  the  magnificence  and  the 
misery  of  Mexico   City. 

There  on  the  pavement  sits  a  vil- 
lage woman  rolling  a  cigarette.  Nine 
brass  rings  with  settings  of  glass 
decorate  just  four  of  her  slim,  brown 
fingers. 

But  was  it  so  very,  very  long  ago 
that,  to  many  of  us,  all  that  was 
magnificent  and  desirable  in  the 
way  of  jewels  was  represented  by  a 
prize-box  ring,  with  its  bit  of  ruby 
or  sapphire  glass  on  top?  The  years 
have  improved  our  taste  in  Art,  but 
they  have  taken  away  the  superb 
content  of  childhood.  So  there  is 
no  depreciation  in  our  smile  for  the 
Aztec  woman  with  the  charming 
rings  and  the  little  girl's  heart. 


An  Idler's  Note-Book  39 

Her  half-naked  son,  under  an  um- 
brella-like hat,  stands  behind  her 
and  timidly  clutches  her  gown.  They 
have  lugged  a  stock  of  pottery  to 
market, — four  water- jugs  and  a  small 
basket  of  glazed  green  and  brown 
mugs.  For  some  of  their  things  they 
may  get  twelve  cents — maybe  only 
five.  Prices  in  Mexican  markets  are 
quite  as  uncertain  as  the  favor  of  a 
politician. 

One  young  man,  of  perhaps  eleven, 
thinks  it  ridiculous  to  photograph 
old  worm-eaten  doors  and  balconies. 

He  gives  a  little  whoop  to  attract 
my  attention,  takes  off  his  hat  with 
a  "See  me,  young  lady,"  and  charit- 
ably allows  me  to  get  his  likeness. 

He  is  of  the   generation   that  will 


40  Mexico  City 

favor     gringoes     and     their     cameras 
and   their   railroads. 

High  -  hatted  country  gentlemen, 
barefooted,  with  bell -shaped  trousers 
fitting  like  a  mousquetaire  glove, 
and  with  gorgeous  zarapes  over  their 
shoulders,  file  past.  A  quiet,  serious 
procession  until  they  get  into  one  of 
those  little  shops  where,  back  of 
the  counter,  you  see  such  a  fasci- 
nating array  of  blue  and  white 
bowls, — and  where  the  sour  smell  is 
superlative.  That's  a  pulqueria,  a 
Mexican  saloon. 

The  fat  old  senora  sitting  in  that 
pink  doorway  is  a  dulce-seller,  her 
last  patron  was  that  soft-eyed,  very 
brown  girl  in  a  chemise  and  ragged 


An  Idler's  Note-Book  41 

petticoat  only.  Every  one  eats  dukes 
(sweets)  in  Mexico,  so  I  recklessly 
squander  three  cents  with  the  lady. 
It  is  my  nineteenth  experiment  in 
the  Mexican  dulce  line,  few  of  which 
I  regret — none  of  which  I  confess 
to  my  fastidious  friend  of  the  Amer- 
ican Colony.  The  native  crystallizes 
nearly  everything  edible.  Crystal- 
lized squash  and  sweet  potato  are 
offered  to  you  in  long,  clear  bars — 
resembling  in  appearance  a  high 
grade  of  glycerine  soap.  Then  there 
are  sweets  made  of  milk  and  of 
pecan  nuts  and  of  cocoanut  and  of 
tuna-juice  and  of  spices — of  every- 
thing nice  except  chocolate — which 
is  a  disappointment,  after  reading 
such  a  lot  of  books  about  the  Aztecs 
and  their  choclatL 


42  Mexico  City 

I  desire  to  file  a  protest  some- 
where when,  in  the  most  unexpected 
old  corner  I  discover  a  very  pictur- 
esque native  selling  American  chew- 
ing-gum and  nile-green  gum-drops. 
How  immeasurably  sad  are  such  in- 
novations! Why  doesn't  he  sell  pines 
or  alligator  pears?  Or  opals  and 
corals?  Why  does  he  grin  and  pause, 
expectant,  for  a  Yankee's  look  of 
approval? 

Women  with  babies  tied  on  their 
backs  with  their  rebozos  stop  and 
gossip  vivaciously. 

The  babies  are  thin  and  sad-eyed 
little  things,  pitiably  silent.  Nega- 
tively, you  learn  to  be  glad  that 
Aztec  families  are  small,  that  the 
death-rate  in  Mexico  City  is  second 
to  Constantinople  only. 


An  Idler's  Note-Book  43 

It  is  delightful  to  see  two  grown- 
up men  meet  and  embrace  after  the 
fashion  of  the  country.  They  rush 
melodramatically  into  each  other's 
arms,  each  throws  his  right  arm 
around  the  other  and  delightedly 
pats  him  on  the  left  shoulder-blade, 
while  he  kisses  him  enthusiastically 
on  both  cheeks.  It  is  worth  being 
nearly  run  down  by  a  cab,  witness- 
ing this  custom  de  la  pais;  it  is  really 
difficult  to  refrain  from  applause. 


The  lottery-ticket  venders,  old  and 
young,  male  and  female,  are  ubiqui- 
tous and  persistent.  Lotteries  in 
Mexico  are  government  institutions, 
and  eminently  respectable.  But  I 
virtuously  save  my  coppers  for  ex- 


44  Mexico  City 

periments     in     ices    and     dulces    and 
limonadas. 

How  can  I  believe  in  lotteries 
and  raffles,  when  I  always  draw 
blanks? 

Then  there  are  men  with  flat 
baskets  of  fruit  on  their  heads,  push- 
ing through  the  crowds  and  shriek- 
ing as  though  in  an  agony,  their 
tenor  voices  thick  with  tears.  What 
a  relief  to  learn  they  are  only  cry- 
ing, " Grapes!  grapes!" 

That  slim,  brown  woman  in  white 
cotton  chemise,  neutral  petticoat  and 
blue  rebozo  closely  drawn,  looks  as 
though  her  proper  background  would 
be  a  sphinx  and  a  pyramid,  with  a 
camel  and  a  palm-tree.  She  is  very 


An  Idler's  Note-Book  45 

Egyptianesque.  But,  instead  of  a 
water-jar  on  her  head,  she  has  a 
pulque-jug  in  her  hand,  and  her 
destination  is  the  pulqueria  under 
the  sign  of  The  Pearly  Portal. 

There  in  the  gutter  stands  a 
young  man  of  about  fifteen,  eating 
a  taco  (which  is  a  fried  turn -over, 
filled  with  chopped,  highly-seasoned 
meats — I  once  purchashed  one  in  a 
briefly  seductive  cook-shop)  and  chat- 
ting with  a  pretty  little  girl,  of 
perhaps  twelve,  with  a  baby  on  her 
hip.  The  little  girl  is  his  wife,  ac- 
cording to  another  ancient  unwrit- 
ten law  of  Mexico,  and  that  baby 
is  his  son  and  heir.  It  makes  ,my 
conscience  heavy  to  stop  within  range 
of  their  affectionate  chatter  and  to 


46  Mexico  City 

photograph  her  with  that  pretty 
love-light  in  her  young  eyes.  How 
happy  they  are — yet  are  they  both 
bare-footed  and  but  moderately  clean ; 
and  his  dinner  of  one  taco  she  car- 
ries to  him  in  the  street!  Is  happi- 
ness accidental? 

It  is  not  edifying  to  stop  and 
gape  at  the  poverty  of  these  people 
in  the  tenements  —  huddled  together 
in  one  small,  dark  room — damp  and 
unventilated,  bare  of  all  furnishings 
except  a  tortilla-board,  a  charcoal- 
dish  and  some  pottery  jugs  and 
bowls.  How  can  they  keep  warm, 
or  well,  or  clean  or  good?  Youths, 
maidens,  men,  women,  old  people, 
babies,  —  diseased  and  otherwise, 
Privacy  in  the  home  and  morality 


An  Idler's  Note-Book  47 

as  revealed  to  us  are,  perforce, 
unknown.  They  do  not  theorize, 
their  lives  know  so  many  tragedies 
in  the  struggle  for  primitive  crea- 
ture-comforts. Ah!  one  feels  con- 
strained to  write  them  all  down  in 
a  big  "book  of  pity  and  of  death." 

Such,  alas!  is  the  present  state  of 
many  of  the  children  of  the  mighty 
Montezuma's  warriors!  A  brave, 
patient,  capable  people  —  in  their 
own  land  and  hopeless! 


The  Alameda  and  Chapultepec 


THE    ALAMEDA    AND   CHAPUL- 
TEPEC 

I  had  always  listened  with  un- 
certain patience  and  no  enthusiasm 
to  the  extravagant  praises  of  other 
people  regarding  The  Alameda  of 
Mexico  City. 

Undoubtedly,  in  its  way,  The 
Alameda  was  a  charming  little 
park,  but  we  had  parks  at  home  in 
the  United  States,  and  I  had  seen 
most  of  the  big  ones.  I  knew  it 
was  unsafe  to  walk  even  at  high 
noon  through  The  Alameda,  for  fear 
of  robbers  and  kidnappers,  who 
would  hold  you  for  ransom — send- 
ing slices  of  your  ears  to  insure 


52  Mexico  City 

expedition  on  the  part  of  your 
friends.  But  that  was  twenty-five 
years  ago — there  were  no  bandits 
there  now.  Why  should  I  rhapsodize? 

That  was  before  I  had  explored 
The  Alameda  and  had  walked 
through  that  delightsome  place  from 
corner  to  corner.  Afterward,  when- 
ever it  looked  like  rain  and  my 
friends  became  concerned  about  me, 
they  went  direct  to  The  Alameda. 

The  guide-book  will  tell  you  that 
it  is  a  park  of  about  forty  acres,  and 
that  the  grandees  of  Mexico  walk 
and  drive  there  when  the  band 
plays.  All  of  which  is  as  dry  as 
dust  to  one  who  confesses  to  the 
spell  of  Mexic  enchantment  that 
binds  even  an  unwilling  American, 
the  moment  the  musicianers  begin 


An  Idler's  Note-Book  53 

to  pipe  under  that  turquoise  sky  and 
in  the  tender  gloom  of  the  mighty 
trees  that  arch  high,  high  above 
you  in  The  Alameda. 

I  suppose  there  were  wonderfully 
rare  plants  in  the  tropical  tangle 
along  those  broad,  curving  walks; 
I  suppose  all  those  fountains  cost 
mines  of  money;  I  suppose  some 
of  those  people  were  the  multi-mil- 
lionaires of  Mexico. 

But  of  course  I  did  not  notice 
such  things — hardly  flower-boys  and 
dulce-women — until  the  music  stopped. 

Mexican  music  in  Mexico  is  so 
seductive,  so  full  of  subtle,  minor 
harmonies;  you  feel  impelled  to 
weep  your  life  away  to  the  strains 
of  it. 

Wagner     tires  —  sublimity     always 


54  Mexico  City 

brings  weariness,  and  the  flawless 
beauty  of  your  favorite  sonatas  and 
nocturnes  sometimes  cloys.  It  really 
is,  as  Lamartine  has  said,  pathos 
alone  that  is  infallible  in  art. 

But  of  course  you  don't  cry — fine 
poetic  frenzies  are  not  so  expressed 
nowadays;  it  would  look  merely  like 
hysteria.  So,  under  the  awning  of 
the  principal  promenade,  you  sit  up 
very  straight  indeed  (as  an  American 
girl  should,  in  a  country  where  most 
of  the  women  are  round-shouldered) ; 
and,  with  that  enravishing  music  in 
your  ears,  you  stare  disappointedly 
at  the  fashionable  world  of  Mexico 
in  Paris  and  Vienna  hats  and  gowns. 
The  foreign  ministers  and  the  Amer- 
ican Colony  also  kindly  pass  in  re- 
view before  you. 


An  Idler's  Note-Book  55 

One  of  your  companions  knows 
them  all  and  gives  you  the  reasons 
accepted  by  an  interested  public  for 
the  permanent  residence  in  Mexico 
of  some  of  the  Colony. 

But  very  soon,  all  this  procession 
— with  its  setting  of  tropic  plants  and 
trees,  with  the  green  gloom  thereof 
for  a  lime-light  and  the  Mexican 
band  for  an  orchestra — resolves  itself 
into  just  one  of  those  big  spectac- 
ular dramas;  a  troop  of  clever 
mummers,  a  little  dash  of  society 
business, — expensively  staged,  weari- 
some— and  a  sorrowful  lot  of  trage- 
dians yearning  to  play  light  comedy. 

You  do  not  throw  your  ten -cent 
bouquet  Of  exquisite  roses  and  for- 
get-me-nots into  the  midst  of  them, 
for  the  music  ceases  suddenly,  and 


56  Mexico  City 

you  are  speedily  restored  to  an 
e very-day  frame  of  mind. 

Then  you  begin  to  notice  things 
in  a  rational  way. 

The  poor  people,  too,  were  in 
evidence  there  in  The  Alameda — 
they  are  always  with  you  in  Mexico. 

They  stood  in  silent  groups,  far 
from  the  parade  of  fashion,  and 
listened  solemnly  to  the  music. 
The  men,  in  trousers  and  blouses 
of  white  cotton,  with  shabby,  high- 
crowned  hats  and  with  their  small 
feet  in  pitiable  excuses  for  sandals, 
— were  the  impressively  calm  and 
dignified  figures  of  all  that  crowd. 

But,  alack-a-day!  the  zarapes  over 
their  shoulders  were  not  the  richly- 
colored,  hand-woven  little  blankets  I 
had  hoped  to  get  by  the  dozen. 


An  Idler's  Note-Book  57 

They  were  generally  American  fac- 
tory productions,  quite  too  lively  in 
coloring  for  even  a  sleigh-robe ;  as 
table  or  couch  covers,  they  were 
simply  impossible — one  could  never 
live  in  the  same  house  with  such 
color  combinations. 

Oh!  if  all  the  aniline  dyes  in  the 
world  were  only  at  the  bottom  of 
the  polar  sea! 

The  prettiest  drive  in  Mexico  City 
is  out  to  Chapultepec  Hill.  The 
road  leading  thereto,  bordered  with 
trees  and  opening  at  the  end  of 
The  Alameda,  was  built  by  the 
order  of  Carlotta;  once  it  was  called 
The  Mad  Woman's  as  well  as  The 
Empress*  Drive.  And  that  wasn't 
so  very  long  ago,  yet  to-day  it  is 


58  Mexico  City 

known  only  as  the  Paseo  de  la 
Reforma,  one  of  the  beautiful  drives 
of  the  world. 

At  the  beginning  of  the  Paseo  is 
a  big  old  bronze  statue  of  Charles 
IV,  once  said  to  be  one  of  the 
two  finest  equestrian  statues;  so  I 
tried  to  like  it.  But  the  tail  of  the 
horse  is  too  long  and  it  mars  the 
effect  from  three  sides— and  then 
the  figure  itself  flatters  Charles  (I 
never  did  like  him)  so  unreason- 
ably. That  portrait  of  his  in  the 
National  Museum  may  have  mo- 
mentarily disturbed  the  self-com- 
placency of  his  majesty.  Whoever 
he  was,  the  painter  was  a  daring 
realist. 

At  the  end  of  the  Paseo  is  the 
solitary  hill — the  royal  hill — of  Cha- 


An  Idler's  Note-Book  59 

pultepec,  with  a  castle  and  a  palace 
for  a  crown.  Montezuma's  most 
splendid  residence  was  there  —  at 
least  we  chose  to  believe  that  it 
was — and  there  before  him  had  lived 
his  magnificent  ancestors,  maybe. 
In  that  day,  the  waters  of  Lake 
Tezcuco  plashed  at  the  base  of  the 
hill,  but  the  lake  has  rippled  away 
forever,  and  to-day  soldiers  of  the 
Mexican  republic  stand  there  on 
guard. 

The  road  winds  and  winds  up 
the  hill,  between  ancient  and  mighty 
trees,  with  a  delightsome  under- 
growth of  ferns  and  vines  and 
many  sorts  of  unfamiliar  greenery. 
It  was  easy  to  remember  Montezuma 
and  Maximilian  in  the  gloom  of 
those  cypresses,  bearded  with  Span- 


60  Mexico  City 

ish  moss,  and  to  ponder  on  the 
events  of  the  past  five  or  six  hun- 
dred years,  witnessed  by  those  rocks 
and  by  those  gnarled  old  trees. 

But  it  wasn't  cheerful.  It  made 
me  much  gayer,  comparatively,  to 
look  straight  up  that  steep,  steep 
hillside  and  to  think  how  brave 
Scott's  men  were  to  even  attempt 
to  climb  it  that  morning  in  Septem- 
ber, '47.  But  of  course  they  got  to 
the  top,  a  little  historical  fact  that 
I  recall  with  proper  satisfaction  on 
several  occasions  while  in  Mexico. 

The  President  of  the  Mexican  re- 
public (one  of  the  mighty  men  of 
the  last  century-end)  was  then  at 
the  Palace  of  Chapultepec.  This  was 
a  very  great  inconvenience  to  us, 
but  no  one  else  seemed  to  mind, 


An  Idler's  Note-Book  61 

and  so  we  had  to  be  magnanimous 
and  make  a  pretence  of  being  con- 
tent with  seeing  the  old  castle,  now 
a  military  college. 

I  had  seen  the  Maximilian  silver 
in  the  museum  and  all  the  other 
relics — I  had  hoped  to  see  the  very 
rooms  of  the  palace  where  poor 
Carlotta  had  lived  that  famous  chap- 
ter of  her  sadly  unique  life.  But  I 
didn't. 

Our  permit  to  see  Chapultepec,  a 
tiny  card  from  the  National  Palace 
and  bedight  with  yards  and  yards 
of  military  red  tape,  was  in  the 
course  of  time  delivered  into  the 
hands  of  a  young  and  good-looking 
lieutenant  of  artillery — who  could, 
we  joyously  discovered,  speak  intel- 
ligible English  to  four  ladies  at  once. 


62  Mexico  City 

He  showed  us  through  scientific- 
smelling  class-rooms  and  through 
mess-rooms  and  dormitories  and 
armories  and  gymnasia. 

It  was  all  very  progressive  and 
very  dull. 

By  the  time  we  reached  the 
library,  it  was  lined  to  the  frieze 
with  books  bound  in  russia  of  the 
bravest  scarlet,  we  were  glad  to 
rest.  It  is  just  possible  that  regu- 
lar sight-seeing  is  as  fatiguing  as 
shopping  or  scrubbing  or  golf. 

So,  quite  unmindful  of  the  Jehu 
and  his  hire  on  the  other  side  of 
the  big  gates,  we  were  listlessly 
looking  at  ambitious  drawings  by 
Mexican  cadets  and  military  books 
with  colored  pictures  in  them  when, 
with  no  premonition  whatever,  we 


An  Idler's  Note-Book  63 

made  the  important  discovery  that 
our  guide  and  lieutenant,  a  Spanish- 
Mexican,  could  joke  in  English.  In 
idiomatic  English!  To  be  sure,  we 
had  to  pay  strict  attention  and  we 
had  to  laugh  encouragingly  during 
all  the  pauses;  but,  ethnologically, 
it  was  extremely  interesting. 

After  a  time  our  prodigy  got  down 
the  list  to  that  tiresome  joke  about 
the  standing  army  of  the  United 
States  of  America.  Fancy  having 
to  listen  to  that  alleged  joke — under 
the  roof  of  Chapultepec  Castle  and 
in  the  year  1899!  And  to  the  state- 
ment that  Americans  were  just  a 
lot  of  prize-fighters  and  football- 
players  ! 

It  was  a  dreadful  shock — to  one 
just  from  the  States  and  posted 


64  Mexico  City 

on  war-news  tip  to  within  a  fort- 
night. 

But  then  it  had  been  catalogued 
as  a  joke  and  was  an  old  favorite 
in  high  circles  in  Europe;  there- 
fore I  promptly  laughed  —  faintly. 
In  Mexico  it  isn't  lady-like  to  con- 
tradict— so  I  merely  requested  the 
Lieutenant  to  admit  that  we  put 
up  a  pretty  good  game;  when  I  felt 
stronger  I  ventured  to  inquire  if 
there  had  been  a  really  good  bull- 
fight in  town  lately.  And  then  we 
all  laughed  and  the  tension  lessened. 

Then  we  looked  at  more  picture- 
books,  and  we  made  fun  of  the 
French  and  of  the  Germans,  and  we 
became  very  good  international 
friends  indeed.  Out  in  the  court- 
yard, at  the  foot  of  a  statue  I  per- 


An  Idler's  Note-Book  65 

sisted  in  believing  was  a  little 
compliment  to  George  Washington, 
the  lieutenant  favored  us  with  an 
example  of  the  American  volunteer 
at  drill. 

It  wasn't  so  particularly  funny 
but  we  laughed  politely;  for  didn't 
we  know  that  once  upon  a  time 
General  Winfield  Scott  took  a  few 
volunteers  quite  as  awkward  on  a 
tour  through  Mexico?  And  they 
really  did  nicely. 

Had  the  lieutenant  ever  heard 
about  that?  Or  about  a  ship  called 
44 The  Maine"?  And  a  Yankee  by 
the  name  of  "Dewey"? 

The  panorama  of  the  great  Val- 
ley of  Mexico,  as  seen  from  Cha- 
pul tepee  Hill,  is  said  to  be  the  fin- 
est in  the  world.  It  may  be;  but, 


66  Mexico  City 

minus  its  associative  charm,  I  could 
name  two  landscapes  in  Southern 
California  as  worthy  rivals.  We 
stood  there  near  the  parapet  and 
looked  away — away — and  thought  of 
many  things,  including  the  advis- 
ability of  our  lingering  until  twi- 
light in  some  shady  by-path  that 
we  might  meet  the  ghost  of  Marina. 
I  didn't  think  much  about  Monte- 
zuma  or  Maximilian;  I  dreamed 
dreams  about  Carlotta  and  her  jewels 
and  her  balls  and  her  fetes.  How 
magnificent  her  dinner-table  must 
have  looked,  decked  in  all  that  silver 
now  in  the  museum.  Poor  Car- 
lotta! The  wife  of  a  barefooted 
peon  was  happier;  she  was  just  a 
queen,  with  wealth  and  power  and 
a  crown  of  sorrow. 


An  Idler's  Note-Book  67 

And  then  I  wondered  what  Juarez 
gave  Seward  for  breakfast  that  time 
when  he  was  the  guest  of  the  new 
Mexican  republic.  I  hope  his  cho- 
colate was  not  as  thick  as  mud  with 
sugar  and  cinnamon. 

At  the  big  gates  of  the  castle, 
at  the  beginning  of  a  charming 
flower-garden  blue  with  myosotis, 
we  said  our  farewells  to  the  lieu- 
tenant. He  had  spoken  our  own 
language;  he  had,  in  an  unexpected 
fashion,  broken  the  monotony  of 
sight-seeing.  We  were  particularly 
and  forever  obliged  to  him.  Then 
as  we  began  to  back  out  at  the 
gates,  still  bowing  and  exchanging 
compliments  and  regrets,  he  gave 
unto  each  of  us  as  a  remembrancer 


68  Mexico  City 

a  lovely  brass  button  of  the  artil- 
lery. Who  would  have  dreamed  of 
finding  such  a  thoughtful  and  strictly 
up-to-date  soldier  in  old  Chapulte- 
pec  Castle,  Mexico? 

It  is  said  (and  it  is  going  to  take 
long  years  to  live  down  the  repu- 
tation) that  American  tourists  take 
flower-gardens,  or  paving-stones,  or 
wall-decorations — anything  not  chained 
— as  souvenirs.  Perhaps  that  is  why 
the  lieutenant  and  his  subaltern, 
with  lifted  caps,  stood  at  the  gates 
and  watched  us  until  a  turn  in  the 
road  hid  the  carriage. 

He  made  an  effective  picture,  with 
that  castle  and  palace  and  so  much 
history  behind  him. 

How  did  he  ever  dare  to  be  light- 
hearted? 


An  Idler's  Note-Book  69 

Days  of  peace,  long  life  to  our 
acquaintance  of  a  little  summer  hour ! 
And  long  live  the  Mexican  Army! 


To  the  Floating  Gardens  of 
Tenochtitlan 


TO    THE    FLOATING    GARDENS 
OF   TENOCHTITLAN 

Of  course  they  don't  float  now- 
aday— it  was  very  disappointing.  Is 
there  one  thing  left  for  the  modern 
pilgrim  to  discover,  aside  from  the 
fact  that  he  arrived  on  this  spin- 
ning planet  quite  too  late  to  see 
anything  worth  while? 

Everywhere  the  guide  and  the 
guide-book  and  the  oldest  inhabitant 
conspire  against  your  enthusiasm, 
gloomily  assuring  you  that  this  and 
that  are  hardly  worth  looking  at 
now;  they  are  not  what  they  once 
were.  No,  indeed!  You  come  too 
late! 

73 


74  Mexico  City 

It  is  discouraging,  but  it  is  not 
worth  wrangling  about. 

The  better  way  is  to  assume  the 
look  apologetic,  and,  while  the  little 
fox  of  vexation  gnaws  and  gnaws, 
to  show  everybody  how  amiable  and 
how  appreciative  of  trifles  such  an 
unreasonably  tardy  traveler  can  be. 
Try  the  other  plan — be  supercilious 
or  become  a  party  to  their  depre- 
ciation, disparaging  all  you  see  and 
bragging  about  what  you  have  seen 
elsewhere,  and  you  will  promptly 
meet  with  disaster. 

He  is  unworthy  the  cockled  hat, 
the  pilgrim  shoon,  who  cannot  smile 
and  look  enthusiastic  in  all  lan- 
guages ;  he  should  travel  only  through 
the  medium  of  books,  by  his  own 
little  fireside. 


An  Idler's  Note-Book  75 

So  we  sweetly  gave  ear  to  the 
regulation  lament  and  apology  for 
the  weather,  the  time  of  year  and 
the  era  itself,  and,  discovering  that 
in  this  instance  we  were  only  a  few 
hundred  years  and  exactly  seven 
months  too  late,  we  resignedly  agreed 
to  squander  an  afternoon  in  seeing 
the  Floating  Gardens  that  had  ceased 
to  float,  and  sundry  other  things, 
presumably  not  in  the  least  worth 
while. 

Our  boatman  is,  oh!  such  a  sad- 
eyed,  suddenly-smiling  boy  of  about 
thirteen;  our  boat  sufficiently  prim- 
itive to  delight  the  most  unreason- 
able of  antiquarians.  Now  I  can 
tell  a  bark  from  a  brig,  and  a  brig 
from  a  brigantine  (that  is,  if  it  is 
at  the  end  of  the  summer  and  the 


76  Mexico  City 

coach  has  been  patient),  yet  I  can- 
not demonstrate  the  difference  be- 
tween a  gondola  and  this  Aztec 
canoe;  neither  can  I  make  plain  the 
resemblance,  yet  there  is  a  resem- 
blance. 

And  the  very  same  thing  in  boats, 
be  it  known,  was  in  vogue  long  be- 
fore the  Aztec  oracles  mentioned 
the  Conquerors. 

It  is  very  beautiful  to  look  along 
this  narrow  ribbon  of  water,  bro- 
caded with  the  wavy  reflection  of 
the  tall,  slim  trees  along  the  banks. 
But  there  are  moments  of  anxiety. 
You  have  no  craving  for  death  in 
foreign  parts  and  in  a  canal — yet 
that  very  fate  seems  inevitable,  the 
stream  is  so  crowded  with  market- 


An  Idler's  Note-Book  77 

boats  and  pleasure-boats  and  house- 
boats— all  gliding  silently  and  very 
swiftly  down  with  the  current  to 
the  city.  The  boatmen  stand  in 
front,  unconcerned,  immovable;  it  is 
not  until  the  last  instant  that  our 
little  man  gives  a  skillful  lateral 
push  with  his  pole  and  annihilation 
is  averted. 

It  isn't  lovely,  but  it  is  necessary 
to  flatten  one's  self  on  the  bottom 
of  the  boat  when  we  come  to  these 
low,  stone  bridges,  the  like  of  which 
I  haven't  seen  for  years  and  then 
inside  an  old  drawing-book.  The 
boy  propels  us  under  by  pushing 
scientifically  on  the  mossy  stones  of 
the  arch  with  the  soles  of  his  bare 
feet,  as  he  lies  on  the  flat  of  his 
back  in  the  bottom  of  the  boat. 


78  Mexico  City 

Everything  under  the  Mexican 
sun  pertaining  to  the  Viga  Canal 
is  distractingly  picturesque.  I  think 
of  all  the  clever  paintings  I  have 
seen  of  Venice  and  Holland  and 
China  and  wonder  why,  as  an  in- 
spiration, the  Viga  is  not  equal  to 
any  of  them. 

Here  comes  a  pleasure-boat  of 
young  men  and  maidens,  gay  with 
the  Mexican  colors,  for  only  two 
days  have  passed  since  the  birthday 
of  President  Diaz.  They  stop  their 
song  to  laugh  at  the  prospect  of 
crashing  into  our  humble,  undeco- 
rated  little  craft — and  I  hastily  re- 
view the  rules  for  resuscitation  after 
drowning.  On  they  come,  nearer, 
nearer  and  more  swiftly;  but  the 
boatmen  of  the  Viga  are  really  to 


SUNLIGHT  AND  SHADOW 


An  Idler's  Note-Book  79 

be  relied  upon — at  the  last  fraction 
of  the  last  minute.  So  another  col- 
lision is  averted. 

Oh!  if  I  wink  just  once  some 
detail  of  the  constantly  changing 
picture  is  sure  to  be  lost.  If  I 
look  at  that  long,  narrow  vegetable- 
boat — it  must  be  a  hundred  feet 
long  —  piled  with  such  dreadfully 
commonplace  but  delightfully  colored 
things  as  cabbages  and  radishes  and 
pumpkin-blossoms  and  beets  and  let- 
tuce, I  am  sure  to  miss  the  picture 
of  that  snowy-robed  woman  walking 
along  the  bank  with  a  water- jug  on 
her  head;  or  of  those  two  bare- 
footed, laughing  young  lovers,  saunter- 
ing along  on  the  other  bank,  hand 
in  hand,  and  stopping  occasionally  for 
him  to  kiss  her  smooth,  brown  cheeks. 


8o  Mexico  City 

Very  probably,  the  great  Cortes 
looked  upon  all  these  things  when, 
as  Montezuma's  unwelcome  and  un- 
snubbable  guest,  he  rode  along  this 
causeway,  noting  with  astonishment 
the  animation  of  the  Viga.  It  was 
an  old,  old  waterway  even  then. 
Possibly  the  great  canal  of  China 
is  no  older. 

We  are  following  in  the  wake  of 
some  empty  flower-boats  returning 
from  the  city  markets.  The  bare- 
footed, high-hatted  men  are  pushing 
the  big,  clumsy  things  upstream, 
shouting  occasionally  to  acquaint- 
ances taking  a  holiday  along  the 
banks.  It's  beautiful  to  see  these 
peons  evince  an  individuality,  and 
somehow  it's  surprising. 

A  little   hamlet  of  pink  and  white 


An  Idler's  Note-Book  81 

stucco  houses,  charmingly  mirrored 
in  the  sluggish  gray  water, — then 
our  boat  glides  along  through  a 
tangle  of  water-weeds  and  past  a 
fringe  of  willows,  right  into  a  swarm 
of  little  bathers. 

Their  clothes  must  be  on  the  bank 
somewhere,  but,  unmindful,  they 
stand  in  the  shallow  water  and 
frankly  stare  at  us  just  as  the 
cherubs  in  the  art  gallery  did. 

Down  in  Mexico  one  so  frequently 
chances  upon  animate  bronzes  bereft 
of  drapery  and  pedestal  and  cata- 
logue number.  I  recall  a  certain 
admirable  piece,  not  an  antique,  that 
was  discovered  one  afternoon  in  a 
dim  street  of  an  out-of-the-way  vil- 
lage. I  did  not  overtake  him,  but 
in  that  little  back  was  shown  in- 


82  Mexico  City 

comparable  grace  of  movement.  And, 
too,  such  beauty  of  form  and  model- 
ing! Ah,  yes!  it  was  quite  plain 
from  that  unknown  piece  of  Mexican 
bronze  that  even  Donatello  himself 
could  be  surpassed. 

We  stop  at  some  tiny  villages  to 
see  the  old  churches  and  a  sad, 
lichen-spotted  chapel.  What  inde- 
fatigable church-builders  those  early 
Spaniards  were!  Did  it  make  them 
easier  of  conscience?  They  of  this 
generation  have  been  good, — they 
have  not  removed  the  ancient  land- 
marks which  their  forefathers  did 
set,  but  alas!  many  of  them  they 
have  defaced  with  whitewash,  an 
accursed  sky-blue  whitewash!  It  is 
dreadful  but  pitiable. 

At  Santa  Anita    we  take  a    canoe 


An  Idler's  Note-Book  83 

for  the  Floating  Gardens.  Gondolas 
and  Spanish  galleons  and  Chinese 
junks  and  birch -bark  canoes  are  all 
perfectly  delightful  to  dream  about, 
but  one  should  know  intimately  the 
canoe  of  these  chinampas.  Such  a 
dear  little  boat,  such  a  trim,  slim 
little  arrow  of  a  boat — about  two 
feet  by  eighteen,  I  think;  and  then 
there  are  two  statuesque  boatmen, 
zaraped,  high-hatted  and  barefooted, 
to  stand  at  either  end  and  push  us 
about  the  Gardens. 

Dear!  dear!  It  will  never  do  to 
confess  disappointment  at  finding  the 
famous  old  Floating  Gardens  of 
Tenochtitlan  to  be  mere  plats  of 
green,  with  flowers  and  trees  and 
vegetables, — and  just  separated  by 
strips  of  water  like  irrigation -ditches 


84  Mexico  City 

and  along  which  our  little  boat  is 
pushed ! 

Of  course  I  hadn't  expected  the 
Gardens  to  float,  but  I  had  expected 
them  to  be  top-heavy  with  gorgeous 
tropical  flowers  and  thickets  of 
palm-trees  and  clumps  of  tree-ferns 
with  parrots  in  them. 

Or  maybe  just  a  cactus,  with  an 
eagle  aloft  and  a  snake — a  very, 
very  little  one! 

I  am  not  content  with  pulling 
daisies  and  the  lilac-colored  "lily  of 
the  country, "  as  we  squeeze  in  be- 
tween the  little  old  gardens — many 
of  them,  alas!  planted  to  horrid 
cabbages.  I  am  not  content,  even 
when  one  of  the  boatmen  lands  and 
picks  bits  of  crimson  and  pink  which 
verily  prove  to  be  wild  poppies. 


An  Idler's  Note-Book  85 

My  shattered  illusions  might  mag- 
nanimously be  forgotten  did  he  heap 
the  canoe  with  those  exquisite  silken 
things.  But  he  brings  only  a  care- 
less handful. 

Then  the  other  boatman  noncha- 
lantly pulls  a  lily-bud  with  a  yard 
of  stem.  He  turns  his  back,  he 
touches  it  with  his  magic  brown 
fingers,  and  presto!  he  holds  before 
us  a  beautiful,  beautiful  necklace 
like  unto  one  of  clear  jade  beads — 
with  an  ivory  lily-bud  for  a  pen- 
dant. 

On  gala-days  hundreds  and  hun- 
dreds of  years  ago,  so  reads  the 
story,  the  maids  of  Aztec  Land 
bound  wreaths  of  poppies  about 
their  dark  tresses — and,  around  their 
necks,  they  wore  wonderful  neck- 


86  Mexico  City 

laces  exactly  like  this  one  our  boat- 
man has  made  so  cleverly.  Oh!  is 
it  to  be  mine?  I  am  mute  with 
apprehension  as  he  silently  hands  it 
to  the  Chief  Escort;  my  heart  refuses 
to  beat  until  the  Chaperone  has  de- 
clined to  wear  the  slimy  thing — 
then  I  am  proud  to  rescue  it  from 
the  bottom  of  the  boat  and  to  drop 
it  ecstatically  over  my  head  and 
about  my  neck.  The  famous  emer- 
alds of  Cortes  could  make  me  no 
happier. 

Now  am  I  enabled  to  shake  off 
the  mental  malaria  and  to  see  ap- 
preciatively the  beauty  of  these  ro- 
mantic old  chinampas,  as  we  push 
in  and  about  them  until  the  sun 
sets. 

Some    one    confesses    a    thirst,    so 


An  Idler's  Note-Book  87 

we  land  and  pulque  is  brought  to 
us  in  charming,  highly-glazed  brown 
pots.  There  are  bold  strokes  of  red 
and  orange  on  the  western  sky,  and 
against  it  are  silhouetted  the  tall 
and  slender  water-beeches.  It  is  the 
tranquil  hour  of  day,  the  hour  for 
serious  meditation, — so  I  sit  apart 
and  wonder  about  many  things  be- 
yond the  sunset. 

And  why  on  earth  I  (the  daughter 
of  a  line  of  sturdy  pie-eaters)  can- 
not manage  to  drink  pretty,  pink 
pulque!  But  I  can't!  I  can't!  Even 
when  I  nearly  forget  its  odor. 

Then  I  begin  a  desperate  flirta- 
tion with  a  dear  little  maiden  of 
four.  She  lives  in  a  hut  of  rushes 
on  the  edge  of  the  stream,  and  her 
dark  eyes  are  deep  and  trustful  and 


88  Mexico  City 

her  gurgle  of  laughter  is  very  en- 
joyable music. 

We  walk  on,  past  primitive  houses 
and  primitive  man.  The  girls  of  the 
village  are  grouped  effectively  in 
the  plazuelas.  So  extremely  pictur- 
esque are  they,  with  their  costumes 
differing  only  in  color,  that  one 
presently  believes  the  chorus  of  an 
opera  has  strayed  hither. 

Nothing  seems  real,  due  of  course 
to  the  magic  necklace.  Not  even 
the  supper  we  have  in  a  bower,  in 
front  of  one  of  the  little  rush  huts, 
and  where  a  barefooted  lady  (attired 
in  a  blue  skirt  and  a  white  chemise, 
with  a  very  pink  neck-fixing)  serves 
us  pulque  and  pink,  sweet  tomales. 
Likewise  little  bunches  of  minnows, 
wrapped  in  cornhusks  and  roasted  in 


An  Idler's  Note-Book  89 

the  ashes  and  served  cold — very  cold 
indeed.  The  Chief  Escort  politely 
expresses  a  preference  for  warm 
minnows,  and  is  sweetly  assured  by 
the  hostess  that  hot  fish  is  injurious. 

Then  two  musicians  come  and 
bow  themselves  into  our  bower  and 
play  the  most  dreamy,  melancholy 
things  on  the  harpo  and  bandolin. 
And  then  all  the  relatives  and  friends 
and  neighbors  of  our  hostess  softly 
come  and  wedge  themselves  in  and 
about  the  arbor;  and  a  very,  very 
big  Mexican,  with  a  high  look  and 
his  face  shadowed  by  an  enormous 
hat  (he  must  be  the  swell  of  the 
village)  comes  and  silently  blockades 
the  flowery  doorway. 

No  one  speaks,  not  even  when 
the  musicians  rest ;  there  is  no  sound 


9O  Mexico  City 

but  the  distant  cry  of  the  boatmen 
and  of  children  at  play  in  the  twi- 
light. A  white  moon  comes  up  and 
sheds  a  theatric  sort  of  light,  and 
the  sorrowful-eyed  musicianers  play 
soft,  strange  airs  that  enable  one  to 
see  and  think  most  extraordinary 
things. 

But  very  abruptly  the  spell  ended. 
I  did  not  lose  the  magic  necklace, 
neither  did  I  break  it;  thus  it  hap- 
pened. 

In  a  moment  most  shockingly  ab- 
stracted, it  seems  I  made  use  of 
such  a  phrase  as,  "Good  night,  boat- 
man,"— and  very  properly  the  ex- 
ceeding great  wrath  of  the  Chief 
Escort  was  straightway  upon  me  and 
I  was  obliged  to  at  once  wake  up 


An  Idler's  Note-Book  91 

and  to  identify  myself  with  the  nine- 
teenth century.  It  would  have  been 
in  unquestioned  good  taste,  had  I 
merely  sworn  at  the  man — I  would 
have  been  a  high-bred  lady,  I  would. 
But  to  have  addressed  him,  a  boat- 
man, civilly — Caramba! 

I  promptly  hated  the  Chief  Es- 
cort, and  I  counted  forty-three  times 
very  inaccurately.  And  I  was  busy 
for  a  long  time  after  that,  thanking 
God  for  having  been  born  an  Amer- 
ican with  a  contempt  for  such  a 
thing  as  caste. 

But  it  was  such  a  rude  and  such 
an  inartistic  awakening!  And  the 
spirit  of  the  Aztec  princesses  had 
permanently  fled;  I  could  not,  on 
the  long,  long  way  back  into  the 
city,  conjure  up  the  consciousness 


92  Mexico  City 

of  even  one  ordinary  Indian  maid 
with  a  poppy  wreath  on  her  head. 
And  then  it  began  to  rain  drearily, 
and  I  was — homesick ! 

Oh!  such  little  bits  of  things  make 
or  mar  a  day,  or  a  life.  I  have 
forgiven  the  Chief  Escort,  but  I 
shall  forget  to  forget. 

In  the  heat  and  light  of  the  can- 
dles the  magic  necklace  quickly 
faded,  and  I  hung  it,  mourning,  on 
a  peg  above  the  writing-desk.  It 
was  a  charming  and  a  refined  fancy 
of  some  pagan  aesthete  wandering 
about  the  Floating  Gardens  in  the 
long  ago.  It  was  an  heirloom  of 
the  ages.  And  as  such  I  prized  it. 


Early  Mass  and  the  Flower  Market 


EARLY   MASS   AND   THE 
FLOWER   MARKET 

Life,  we  are  told,  is  full  of  griev- 
ous hardships.  I  chanced  upon  one 
of  them  down  in  Mexico. 

Getting  up  before  day  and  dress- 
ing "by  yellow  candle-light"  reads 
sweetly — Stevenson's  child  probably 
enjoyed  it;  but  the  reality  in  a 
cellar-like  hotel,  before  the  mozo 
and  the  chocolate-maker  are  up,  is 
no  motive  for  a  lyric.  It  consti- 
tutes the  hardship  referred  to.  So, 
while  the  Chaperone  snores  rhyth- 
mically (confident  that  when  she 
does  choose  to  awake,  the  mozo  with 
95 


g6  Mexico  City 

her  chocolate  will  be  at  the  door; 
while  night  hangs  upon  my  eyes 
and  I  am  in  the  very  middle  of 
an  interesting  dream),  I  dress  and 
stealthily  hurry  forth  through  the 
echoing  corridors  of  the  hotel  into 
the  raw,  gray  day.  For  I  am  going 
to  early  mass  in  the  old  cathedral, 
— afterward  to  the  flower  mar- 
ket. 

To  be  sure,  I  could  go  at  another 
and  a  more  rational  hour,  but  then 
I  would  not  see  the  dulce-girls  and 
the  street-sweeper  and  the  pickpocket 
and  the  cutthroat — nor  any  of  their 
friends.  I  shall  not  know  them  all, 
I  fear,  but  they  are  sure  to  be 
there  at  early  mass;  I  shall  see  the 
submerged  two-thirds  of  Mexico  at 
their  devotions. 


An  Idler's  Note-Book  97 

It  will  be  different,  very  different, 
from  that  ceremony  of  yesterday  in 
the  San  Domingo  Cathedral.  (What 
if  that  aristocratic  old  fane  could 
be  induced  to  tell  what  it  knows 
about  the  Inquisition  for  the  Re- 
pression of  Heresy?)  Mrs.  Diaz  was 
there — all  the  Spanish-Mexican  na- 
bobs were  there, — in  silk  attire  and 
ablaze  with  gems. 

It  was  very  beautiful.  The  walls 
of  the  cathedral  were  hung  with 
ruby  silk-velvet,  from  the  rich  gild- 
ing of  the  frieze  to  the  wainscot 
line;  candles  twinkled  on  a  score 
of  altars  and  blazed  in  constella- 
tions overhead;  the  rich  vestments 
of  the  priests  were  heavy  with  gold 
embroidery;  the  images  were  crowned 
and  hedged  about  with  regular  hot- 


98  Mexico  City 

house  flowers;  and  the  music  was 
an  inspiration  to  high  thinking  for 
a  week. 

But  perfect  ceremonies  like  that 
are  for  the  edification  of  Mexico's 
rich  and  mighty — and  for  friends  of 
the  American  Consul-General;  the 
hungry  poor  do  not  need  such  beau- 
tiful theatrics — they  are  content  to 
slip  into  the  church  and  hurriedly 
say  their  little  prayer  alone. 

Such  a  gray  and  dreary  morning! 
The  chill  and  the  damp  penetrate 
like  stilettos — no  one  in  sight,  not 
even  a  lottery-ticket  vender. 

Ah!  there  goes  a  barefooted  la- 
borer in  dirty  white  cottons;  his 
zarape  is  so  badly  worn  and  he 
looks  frozen — but  he  does  not  shiver. 
He  wears  his  entire  wardrobe,  and 


• 


i*    jXj 

il.*— 

i 

'      i 

f 

An  Idler's  Note-Book  99 

it  would  not  make  him  warm  to 
shiver  or  to  grumble.  (I  can  philos- 
ophize at  this  cheerless,  matutinal 
hour,  but  my  teeth  will  chatter 
traitorously.)  He  hurries  along,  with 
a  haughty  air  and  a  handful  of  cold 
tortillas.  He,  too,  is  going  to  very 
early  mass. 

We  enter  in  at  the  splendidly- 
carved  doors  of  the  Sagrario,  the 
big  seventeenth-century  chapel  once 
used  only  for  marriages,  christenings 
and  funerals,  and  from  which  the 
crucifix  and  holy-water  were  carried 
to  the  dying  in  a  wonderful  gilded 
chariot;  at  its  approach  even  a  vice- 
roy had  to  kneel — perhaps  in  the 
mud.  Of  course  you  do  not  see  the 
Procession  of  the  Holy  Wafer  in 
these  days,  and  this  magnificent  old 


ioo  Mexico  City 

church  is  now  the  property  of  the 
Mexican  government. 

The  style  of  the  Sagrario  may  be 
architecturally  vicious — it  is  a  trifle 
heavy  with  ornament.  But  Time  has 
done  much  in  his  inimitable  way; 
he  has  subdued  the  gold  of  the 
marvelously-wrought  carvings  within, 
which  when  new  must  have  quite 
blinded  the  eye  of  him  who  looked. 

I  am  not  too  soon — already,  in 
the  faint  light  of  the  early  morn- 
ing, the  bare  floor  of  the  great 
chapel  is  dark  with  kneeling  wor- 
shipers. 

My  laboring-man  carefully  places 
his  tortillas  and  his  hat  on  the  floor 
and  kneels  afar  off.  Near  him  is  a 
black-robed  woman  telling  her  beads 
in  a  fashion  most  picturesquely  de- 


An  Idler's  Note-Book          101 

vout;  with  her  face  shadowed  that 
way  by  her  rebozo,  her  head  is  a 
very  good  likeness  of  the  Stabat 
Mater. 

Ah!  there  are  some  young  friends 
of  mine  —  dulce-girls  every  one. 
They  are  very  pretty  in  their  faded 
pinks  and  blues,  and  their  charm- 
ing little  smiles  of  recognition  al- 
most induce  me  to  believe  that  the 
sun  is  up  and  a-shining  outside. 

These  figures  prostrate  before  that 
dusty  old  side-altar  seem  to  have  a 
common  grief ;  the  man  wears  mourn- 
ing. 

A  lottery-woman  bows  her  head 
down  to  the  cold  pavement.  Her 
tickets  make  a  big  bulge  in  her 
blue  rebozo.  Maybe  she  prays  for 
good  luck  this  day. 


IO2  Mexico  City 

Leaning  near  one  of  the  big  stone 
pillars  is  a  barefooted  Indian;  his 
white  cotton  blouse  is  horrid  with 
blood-stains,  yet  he  is  no  murderer 
— only  a  butcher-boy.  He  fidgets 
with  his  shabby  hat;  he  certainly 
has  a  woe,  but  who  will  comfort 
him? 

A  charming  young  lady  in  black 
bows  low  to  the  principal  altar  and 
glides  out,  drawing  closely  her  head- 
covering.  She  is  as  sweetly  and 
fragilely  beautiful  as  a  Bougereau 
virgin. 

I  tiptoe  past  a  pottery  merchant 
whose  wares  are  forgotten  on  the 
pavement  at  his  side;  past  a  sleepy 
boy  with  a  tray  of  magenta  tunas; 
and  past  a  sorrowful-faced  old  woman 
with  two  baskets  of  yellow  pumpkin 


An  Idler's  Note-Book          103 

blossoms.  People  will  buy  them  and 
boil  them  for  "greens." 

Then  I  pick  my  way  through 
kneeling  groups  of  stern-faced  men, 
wrapped  to  the  chin  in  their  zarapes, 
their  unreadable  eyes  on  the  priests; 
they  might  be  images  in  tinted  bisque 
so  motionless  are  they  against  that 
cold  white  background.  Oo-oo-oo!  I 
do  not  like  to  look  at  them!  They 
do  not  pray — they  just  gaze  straight 
ahead,  in  such  an  intense  and  in- 
comprehensible way.  The  poor  things 
look  really  very  wicked! 

For  a  moment  I  rest  at  the  end 
of  an  ancient  wooden  settee  and  by 
the  side  of  a  blind  old  beggar.  His 
poor  body  is  misshapen  with  age 
and  with  rheumatism,  but  his  un- 
beautiful  face  is  illumined  with  love 


IO4  Mexico  City 

and  faith,  as  he  listens  to  the  serv- 
ice. He,  alone,  in  all  that  throng, 
looks  thoroughly  happy  and  hope- 
ful. 

Then,  through  rows  of  women  tell- 
ing their  beads,  but  with  their  eyes 
following  me  curiously,  I  pass  by 
the  side-altar  (where  a  young  priest 
is  reading  the  service  from  an  old 
book  delightfully  rubricated)  and  into 
the  cathedral  proper. 

At  its  entrance  I  stand  humbly, 
very  humbly,  and  look  down  the 
nave — up  into  the  dome.  Gloomy 
and  magnificent, — vast,  sublime!  The 
echo  of  a  footfall  seems  a  profana- 
tion. 

I  suddenly  realize  that  I  am  pray- 
ing. 

And  there   is  the  famed  high-altar 


An  Idler's  Note-Book          105 

and  the  marvelous  choir-rail  with 
its  superb  candelabra,  not  yet  melted 
down  by  the  Mexican  government. 
Despoiled  again  and  again  and  again, 
yet  this  old  cathedral  founded  by 
Cortes  is  still  splendid  with  paint- 
ings and  rare  marbles;  it  is  still 
beautiful  with  the  gleam  of  silver 
and  gold  and  fine  brass  and  pol- 
ished onyx.  For  it  was  the  costli- 
est church  ever  built  on  the  western 
continent. 

But  such  magnificence  I  can  ap- 
preciate only  in  an  infantile  way  at 
such  an  early  hour — I  will  find  the 
Murillo  and  come  again  in  the  after- 
noon. 

What,  I  wonder,  is  the  disquiet- 
ing sin  of  that  ragged  little  man 
kneeling  so  abjectly  at  the  great 


io6  Mexico  City 

Altar  of  Pardon!  What  a  restless 
eye  and  bad  mouth! 

Our  Blessed  Lady  of  Guadalupe 
appears  to  be  the  best-beloved;  the 
candles  on  her  altars  seem  always 
to  be  lighted  and  the  railing  hung 
with  the  freshest  flowers.  Over  at 
her  hillside  shrine  in  Guadalupe 
where,  in  the  third  vision,  she  ap- 
peared to  the  Indian,  the  walls  are 
covered  with  the  most  curious  imagin- 
able little  paintings, — representing  all 
sorts  of  catastrophes  which  were 
happily  averted,  through  her  influ- 
ence, from  the  individuals  who  grate- 
fully hung  up  those  votive  memorials. 

The  beggars  who  ask  alms  in  the 
name  of  the  Virgin  of  Guadalupe 
may  well  be  a  sanguine  lot. 

Under     one     of     these     side-altars, 


An  Idler's  Note-Book          107 

they  say,  are  buried  the  heads  of 
many  Mexican  patriots,  and  some- 
where in  one  of  these  side-chapels 
reposes  the  Emperor  Iturbide.  Under 
this  lofty  roof  and  with  much  glit- 
tering pomp,  those  fated  two,  Maxi- 
milian and  Carlotta,  were  crowned 
with  crowns  that  brought  such  brief 
power  and  so  much  grief. 

Just  outside  the  door  of  the  sac- 
risty stands  a  splendidly-carved  old 
confessional,  quite  guiltless  of  var- 
nish and  curiously  worm-eaten.  My 
admiration  is  noted  by  the  old 
sacristan.  He  comes  and  he  bows 
and  with  a  princely  wave  of  the 
hand,  he  gives  me  permission  to 
inspect  the  sacristy  of  the  great 
cathedral,  which  I  find  behind  two 
more  seventeenth-century  doors,  won- 


108  Mexico  City 

derfully  carved.  I  shudder  as  I  pass 
in,  lest  the  brown,  satiny  wood  of 
those  dear  old  doors  soon  be  "re- 
stored" by  applications  of  "fillers" 
and  paints  and  varnish. 

The  tiny  altar-boys,  in  cheerful 
scarlet  robes,  are  buzzing  about,  and 
an  old,  old  priest  (such  a  fine  and 
gentle  face !)  is  making  himself  ready 
for  the  next  mass — and  with  a  de- 
liberation absolutely  restful.  The 
three  chat  softly  and  affectionately. 

My  presence  is  unnoted  and  I 
wander  about,  staring  at  the  amazing 
paintings  spread  over  the  walls  and 
ceiling  (and  which  I  hope  some  day 
to  have  forgotten),  trying  vainly  not 
to  covet  the  splendid  old  mahogany 
chests  of  drawers  extending  around 
the  great  room.  How  ideal  in  their 


Street  Sweeper 


An  Idler's  Note-Book          109 

simplicity  are  the  brass  pulls  thereof, 
and,  too,  how  eloquent  of  their  ancient 
origin ! 

I  very  well  know  that  all  those 
drawers  are  crammed  with  folded 
vestments  and  altar-cloths  heavy  with 
gold  and  silver  thread  and  beautiful 
with  splashes  of  old  posies  such  as 
never  grew  in  any  earthly  garden. 
I  further  realize  that  I  shall  never 
own  even  a  patch  of  all  those  bro- 
cades— that  I  shall  probably  never 
even  see  one  of  those  altar-cloths. 
But  with  as  resigned  as  possible  a 
countenance,  I  thank  the  pleasant 
little  sacristan  for  the  pleasure  of 
having  seen  the  dreadful  paintings 
(why  should  he  suspect  the  chests 
of  drawers  are  worth  looking  at?) 
and  hurry  out  into  the  nave  of  the 


1 10  Mexico  City 

dim  old  cathedral,  echoing  now  with 
the  footfalls  of  many  newly-arrived 
worshipers.  They  look  a  more  cheer- 
ful lot — doubtless  they  have  all  break- 
fasted. But  where  is  that  Murillo? 
I  cannot  detect  the  old  master 
among  so  many  of  his  talented  pupils 
— and  then  it  is  so  v.ery  dark  in 
the  little  alcoves.  I  search  in  vain 
up  and  down  both  those  great  aisles. 
Why  don't  they  have  it  placarded? 
And,  oh!  if  I  could  only  again  lo- 
cate the  man  with  all  those  lovely 
tortillas! 

But  it's  now  for  the  Flower  Mar- 
ket, in  the  very  shadow  of  the 
Cathedral  on  the  west  and  fringed 
about  with  parrot- venders  and  straw- 
berry-women. 


An  Idler's  Note-Book          in 

The  flower-boys  are  just  effectively 
spreading  their  really  gigantic  wreaths 
of  daisies  and  pansies  and  arrang- 
ing in  bunches  great  masses  of  blue 
and  yellow  and  red.  And  such 
quantities  of  white  flowers,  too — 
enough  for  the  bridal  of  all  the 
earth. 

These  modern  Aztecs  show  a 
fine  appreciation  of  color  and  who 
would  have  expected  it,  in  the 
remnant  of  a  race  so  long  enslaved 
and  down-trodden!  Many  of  the 
flowers  are  packed  in  the  stiff,  con- 
ventional French  fashion — very  pretty 
indeed  on  a  Dresden  plate  or  a  wall- 
hanging — and  which  these  imitative 
people  probably  learned  in  Carlotta's 
time.  But  they  have  their  own  pretty 
little  tricks.  Rosebuds,  as  you  wait, 


H2  Mexico  City 

are  made  into  full-blown  roses;  they 
paint  the  gardenia,  likewise  the  water- 
lily,  a  charming  cerise  red;  and  I 
suspect  they  throw  perfume  on  their 
violets. 

Oh!  only  a  wooden  image  could 
resist  all  these  impassioned  entreat- 
ies, these  sweet  blandishments  of 
tone  and  glance  of  the  Mexican 
flower-seller.  A  French  milliner  would 
be  stricken  dumb  with  envy. 

An  animate  statue  of  bronze  in 
white  cottons  (not  too  white)  begs 
you  so  mellifluously,  so  tragically, 
to  buy  a  gardenia  set  daintily  about 
with  myosotis  and  fringed  with  vio- 
lets. You  glance  twice  at  the  little 
fellow,  so  he  becomes  a  persistent 
shadow;  you  must  buy  then,  or  run 
away. 


An  Idler's  Note-Book          113 

44 What  value?"  "Ten  cents,  young 
lady."  But  you  turn  to  the  old 
woman  with  the  cherry-colored  lilies 
and,  with  a  comic  little  grimace,  the 
dramatic  flower  -  boy  immediately 
thrusts  the  ten-cent  gardenia  into 
your  hand  for  three  cents. 

Your  heart  may  be  beating  wildly, 
but  you  assume  indifference  and  get 
that  armful  of  forget-me-nots  for 
eighteen  cents. 

If  you  enthuse  openly  over  those 
flawless  American  Beauties,  the  ex- 
orbitant price  of  eight  cents  each 
will  be  yours  to  pay. 

Oh!  if  things  in  Mexico  were 
strictly  one  price  only,  what  a  heaven 
it  would  be  for  the  enthusiast!  As 
it  is,  you  learn  to  deceive  and  dis- 
semble and  dissimulate — you  return 


H4  Mexico  City 

to  the  States  with  that  New  Eng- 
land conscience  of  yours  in  a  per- 
fectly unrecognizable  condition,  if 
you  bring  it  back  at  all. 

What  a  sweet  bewilderment  to 
sight  and  smell  is  this  flower  mar- 
ket! And  was  there  ever  a  more  en- 
ravishing  perfume  than  the  composite 
of  violets  and  gardenias  and  Mexican 
strawberries?  You  are  certainly  in- 
toxicated, and  you  buy  in  the  most 
reckless  gringo  fashion.  All  the 
flower  boys  have  discovered  you 
now,  and  they  rush  at  you  and 
thrust  dazzling  nosegays  into  your 
eyes  and  under  your  nose  and  quite 
deafen  you  with  their  entreaties  to 
buy. 

But  you  manage  to  center  your 
admiration  (the  apparent  waning  of 


An  Idler's  Note-Book          1 1 5 

which  influences  the  market-price) 
upon  a  cluster  of  superb  orchids. 

44 Lady!  lady!  fifty  cents."  You 
lift  your  eyebrows  in  counterfeit 
amazement. 

"Beautiful  aroma,  twenty-five  cents, 
young  lady!  twenty-five  cents!"  You 
shrug  your  shoulders. 

"Eighteen  cents!  eighteen  cents! 
eighteen  cents!  little  lady!" 

But  their  picturesqueness,  their 
caressing  tones  and  honorific  dimin- 
utives— and  their  bargains — do  not 
annihilate  the  fact  that  some  loose 
change  must  be  saved  for  to-day's 
pottery  and  dulces. 

Nevertheless,  I  consider  with  seri- 
ousness the  purchase  of  one  of  their 
giant  wreaths  of  daisies,  with  a  big 
cluster  of  gardenias  and  white  roses 


n6  Mexico  City 

nodding  at  the  top;  it  is  only  two 
dollars,  Mex.  The  trouble  is,  it  is 
quite  too  grand  to  present  to  an  in- 
dividual in  the  private  walks  of  life, 
even  in  Mexico;  Teddy  Roosevelt 
lives  at  such  an  inconvenient  dis- 
tance ;  I  have  no  friend  in  the  Amer- 
ican cemetery. 

But  then — I  love  daisies  quite  as 
much  as  Eric  Mackay  ever  could, 
and  there  really  might  be  a  won- 
derful pleasure  in  the  possession  of 
a  garland  of  flowers  about  four  feet 
in  diameter!  There  might  be  a — 
but  no!  I  simply  cannot  afford  to 
squander  the  price  of,  so  many  lovely 
water-bottles  or  of  that  big,  persim- 
mon-colored crucifix  down  in  the 
Thieves'  Market,  on  my  room  deco- 
rations. 


An  Idler's  Note-Book          117 

Therefore  do  I  sigh,  turning  away 
mine  eyes  slowly  and  remembering 
Lot's  wife. 

Then,  dragging  myself  away  from 
those  gorgeous  heaps  of  flowers 
flaunting  in  the  dark-blue  shadow  of 
the  market — and  compelling  myself 
past  even  the  soft -voiced  strawberry- 
women — I  betake  myself  and  my 
floral  burdens  out  into  the  pale,  early 
sunshine  and  back  to  the  hotel. 

That  was  the  memorable  morning 
I  ate  even  the  thick  slab  of  indiffer- 
ent sweet-cake  that,  in  Mexico,  comes 
to  you  with  your  morning  chocolate 
under  the  beguiling  name  of  pan 
Inglts. 


At  a  Mexican  Country-House 


AT    A   MEXICAN    COUNTRY- 
HOUSE 

The  day  before,  under  the  blazing 
sun  of  Teotihuacan,  I  had  climbed 
the  Pyramid  of  the  Sun  and  the 
Pyramid  of  the  Moon;  that  day, 
breakfastless,  I  had  gone  to  the 
Merced  Market  and  the  famously 
beautiful  old  church  of  La  Santisima; 
I  had  afterward  tramped,  quite  lunch- 
eonless,  all  over  and  around  the  hill- 
side shrines  of  Our  Blessed  Lady  at 
Guadalupe,  and  had  accumulated  in 
her  market-places  a  mozo-load  of 
pottery  for  friends  in  the  States. 

These  simple  facts  produced  not 
merely  an  under-languaged  enthusi- 
asm but  a  mighty  hunger  and  an 


122  Mexico  City 

inordinate  longing  for  a  rest-cure. 
The  hunger,  I  can  now  see,  was 
foreordained.  Not,  indeed,  that  I 
might  look  with  rapture  and  enforced 
resignation  upon  a  Mexican  banquet 
but  that  one  gringo  might  sit  down 
and  eat  thereof  and  arise  triumphant 
with  digestion  not  permanently  im- 
paired. 

It  was  in  the  late  afternoon  of 
that  busy,  that  dreadfully  happy 
day,  that  I  reached  the  hotel  and 
was  told  that  the  special  car  for  the 

S minister's  ball  left   the  Zocalo 

within  one  little  hour.  I  was  dis- 
mayed. There  was  no  margin  for  a 
siesta  nor  for  a  pilgrimage  to  a 
restaurant — there  was  hardly  time 
for  a  bath  and  a  bromo-seltzer.  It 
was  a  very  unlovely  moment. 


An  Idler's  Note-Book          123 

We  crammed  some  of  our  fixings 
into  a  party-bag,  we  made  perfectly 
frantic  haste  and  we  succeeded  in 
just  missing  that  car  Especial.  But 
ere  we  had  slain  ourselves,  before 
we  were  even  well  started  in  lam- 
entations, our  generous  American 
friend  (he  remained  cosily  at  home 
and  read  a  musty  book  by  Bernal 
Diaz)  donated  the  trifling  sum  of 
twenty  dollars  for  our  car-fare,  and 
we  four  were  soon  jolting  along 

toward  the  country-house  of  the  S • 

minister,  in  a  private  street-car  of 
our  very  own. 

It  was  raining  when  we  reached 
the  village  of  our  destination,  an 
ancient  and  picturesque  one,  about 
fifteen  miles  out  from  the  capital 
city.  The  cobbled  and  grass-grown 


1 24  Mexico  City 

streets  wound  artistically  between 
high  stone  walls,  over  which  drooped 
branches  of  strange  trees,  dripping 
in  the  noiseless  rain. 

We  were  not  so  very,  very  merry 
as  we  groped  along.  The  great  dark- 
ness and  the  silence  seemed  ominous. 

There  were  big  lanterns  (three,  to 
be  accurate,  and  swinging  from  mas- 
sive iron  brackets  above  the  entrances 
to  secluded  villas)  that  threw  pale 
yellow  rays  down  the  black  and 
glistening  streets;  but  they  created 
fantastic  shadows  and  only  momen- 
tarily dispelled  the  fear  of  lurking 
brigands  in  long  cloaks,  with  gleam- 
ing daggers.  Those  two  dark,  mut- 
tering figures  just  in  advance  of  us 
— were  they  prisoners  and  assassins? 
The  setting  of  the  scene  was  not 


An  Idler's  Note-Book          125 

reassuring.  And  the  narrow  street 
twisted  on  and  on  and  away  into 
the  darkness  and  without  any  sounds 
of  revelry,  without  any  Japanese 
lanterns.  We  were  very  dull  and 
very,  very  tired.  Could  we  reason- 
ably expect  to  discover  a  party  any- 
where along  that  ancient  B.  C. -look- 
ing street? 

But  at  last  and  before  our  gowns 
were  quite  crushed  and  limp,  we 
arrived.  This  fact,  evolved  so  tedi- 
ously (perhaps  years  had  really 
passed  since  we  left  the  lights  of 
the  Zocalo!)  was  announced  through 
the  medium  of  a  big  iron  knocker. 

Journeying  by  rail  and  by  stage- 
coach and  by  canoe  and  by  mule 
are  unique  experiences,  but  it  is  the 
arrival  that  in  Mexico  is  so  partic- 


126  Mexico  City 

ularly  charming.  The  dogs  and  the 
1  servants  (they  live  in  the  rooms 
next  to  the  big  entrance)  are  all  so 
frankly  glad  to  see  you — and  the 
host  and  his  family  hurry  to  assure 
you,  over  and  over,  not  of  your 
welcome  merely  but  of  your  owner- 
ship of  everything  in  sight.  Then 
the  maids  and  their  children  and 
their  grandchildren  all  look  after 
your  comfort  in  such  an  enthusiastic 
and  such  a  gratifying  way.  And 
then  they  all  stand  around  admiringly. 
Your  identity  may  have  shrunken 
pitifully  on  the  journey,  but  the 
Mexican  welcome  is  a  compensa- 
tion for  all  the  trials  and  weari- 
nesses, and  you  gradually  expand 
and  radiate  sufficiently  for  a  person- 
age two  times  as  eminent. 


At  a  Mexican  Country-house 


An  Idler's  Note-Book          127 

We  were  too  late  for  the  dinner 
and  the  amateur  theatrics  that  pre- 
ceded the  ball,  but  (and  I  thanked 
my  stars!)  we  were  in  good  time 
for  the  supper. 

Ah  me!  Thirty  hours,  I  solilo- 
quized, and  Fate  had  given  me  but 
two  little  red  bananas,  some  mere 
dots  of  pink  sweet-cakes  (the  girl 
mixed  the  dough  in  a  queer  bowl 
and  baked  them  over  a  tiny  char- 
coal fire,  while  I  stood  and  ad- 
mired) and  a  mouthful  of  chalybeate 
water  over  at  the  sacred  well  of 
Our  Lady — plus  two  bromo-seltzers 
while  dressing  for  the  ball. 

This  would  have  been  niggardly, 
had  it  not  been  positively  munificent. 
The  nasty  chalybeate  water  made  it 
munificent  as,  taken  internally,  one 


128  Mexico  City 

drop  of  that  liquid  is  equivalent  to 
a  sight-draft  on  the  future  for  an- 
other trip  to  Mexico.  But,  perverse- 
ly enough,  this  consoling  fact  was 
not  revealed  to  me  until  a  fortnight 
had  elapsed. 

So,  when  the  procession  formed 
for  the  supper -rooms  on  the  other 
side  of  the  big  patio,  and  a  Mex- 
ican young  man  in  powdered  wig 
and  eighteenth  century  regimentals 
(he  had  been  helping  dance  a  min- 
uet) entreated  me  to  honor  him 
with  my  company  thither,  I  could 
have  danced  or  have  wept  with  de- 
light. But  I  only  smiled  and  tried 
not  to  look  ravenous. 

This  country  place  of  the  S 

minister's  was  thoroughly  charming, 
even  on  a  black  night  and  in  a 


An  Idler's  Note-Book          129 

dreary  rain.  Two  centuries  and  more 
ago  it  was  the  property  of  a  Span- 
ish marquis,  the  gentleman  who 
planned  the  pleasure-garden  which, 
on  that  wet  and  moonless  evening  of 
the  ball,  we  were  not  permitted  to  see. 

Of  course  the  villa  rambled  in  the 
approved  Mexic  style  all  around  four 
sides  of  the  patio,  or  paved  inner 
court,  beautified  with  rare  trees  and 
flowers  and  festoonings  of  delicate 
vines.  And  a  stroll  along  the  cor- 
ridor on  two  sides  of  the  big  patio 
brought  us  to  the  supper-rooms, 
which  were  lofty,  Frenchified  apart- 
ments, softly  lighted  with  candles 
and  echoing  with  merry  small-talk 
in  several  languages. 

The  long  table,  with  its  cande- 
labra, its  superb  roses,  its  disquieting 


130  Mexico  City 

array  of  tall  bottles  and  unfamiliar 
viands — and,  too,  with  all  those  un- 
American  faces  opposite,  seemed  like 
nothing  but  a  French  print.  Noth- 
ing seemed  distinctly  real,  as  I  sank 
into  my  chair,  except  my  very  in- 
dividual hunger. 

At  my  right  was  a  Mexican  gen- 
tleman whose  English  unaided  by 
an  interpreter  was  limited  to  an 
interrogative  "No"  and  a  variety 
of  bows;  next  him  was  the  hostess 
— she  spoke  everything  modern  ex- 
cept English,  she  detested  English. 
Plainly,  the  Fates  had  decreed  that 
I  should  eat  and  be  silent. 

But  on  my  left  there  was  discov- 
ered a  Spanish  lady  who  knew  six 
good  American  adjectives  and  two 
nouns;  and,  as  I  could  boast  scores 


An  Idler's  Note-Book          131 

of  Spanish  adjectives  and  exclama- 
tives,  together  with  a  few  nouns 
and  a  verb  or  two,  we  became 
greatly  attached  to  each  other  dur- 
ing the  progress  of  that  feast.  Even 
if  I  did,  in  my  anxiety  to  be  at 
home  in  Spanish,  confusedly  garnish 
it  with  school-girl  German  and  kin- 
dergarten French,  it  all  passed  for 
high  English.  (I  have  sighed  for  a 
phonographic  record  of  the  conver- 
sation; it  would  successfully  divert 
me,  and  mine  enemies,  even  on  the 
longest,  dreariest  day.) 

Chemically  speaking,  a  Mexican 
party-supper  is  supposed  to  be  equal 
to  the  sum  total  of  several  stupen- 
dous things — the  first  rarebit  of  the 
boarding-school  miss,  plus  amateur 
pineapple  fritters  and  hot  pie  for 


132  Mexico  City 

breakfast,  plus  tripe  and  wedding- 
cake  for  supper.  It  would  seriously 
upset  the  digestion  of  a  cassowary, 
certainly  of  any  gringo  that  ever 
came  to  the  republic  unless  pre- 
ceded by  something  like  a  thirty- 
hour  fast.  There  were,  I  distinctly 
remember,  twelve  sorts  of  meat, 
eight  dukes,  one  salad  and  many, 
many  wines — not  one  of  the  dulces 
was  an  old  acquaintance. 

But  I  lost  count  of  the  other  ex- 
periments. Many  of  them,  though 
spiced  and  decorated  very  mysteri- 
ously, I  bravely  essayed  and  re- 
gretted not — that  evening.  And  I 
privately  congratulated  myself  on  my 
accumulated  hunger — without  it,  I 
might  have  been  considered  provin- 
cial and  supercilious. 


An  Idler's  Note-Book          133 

My  Spanish  neighbor  was  properly 
charmed  with  an  American  who  could 
eat  appreciatively  of  her  favorite 
dishes.  (Our  taste  in  jokes  may 
have  been  seriously  different.)  And 
I  kept  thinking  of  the  Moor  who, 
in  my  Third  Reader,  ate  a  peach 
with  a  stranger  and  therefore  re- 
mained his  true  friend,  even  when 
he  learned  his  only  son  had  been 
killed  by  him.  This  was  irrelevant, 
but  it  interested  me. 

The  menu  was  quite  elaborate 
enough,  yet,  after  a  little  while,  I 
forgot  my  manners  and  whispered 
to  a  maid  for  a  glass  of  water. 

Alas!  the  lordly  host  heard  of 
my  heresy  in  some  way  and  promptly 
came  to  learn  whether  I  were  ill  or 
his  wines  not  pleasing.  My  prefer- 


134  Mexico  City 

ence  for  distilled  water  (and  of 
which  in  that  great  establishment 
there  was  less  than  one  quart)  was, 
in  Mexico,  quite  incomprehensible. 
So  I  divined  I  had  disgraced  my- 
self and  my  godmother  and  had 
annoyed  a  royal  variety  of  host. 
And  I  was  immediately  penitent 
and  in  the  simplest  English,  but 
he  did  not  understand. 

I  never  knew  what  my  Spanish 
neighbor  said  in  my  defence — she 
said  so  much  and  with  so  graceful 
a  vehemence,  patting  my  hand  the 
while.  But  I  am  sure  that  what 
she  said  was  kind.  And  the  legend 
of  the  Moor  and  the  man  and  the 
peach  again  recurred  to  me. 

At  last,  through  a  great  American 
diplomat  and  linguist,  an  elaborate 


An  Idler's  Note-Book          135 

explanation  that  satisfactorily  ex- 
plained was  effected,  and  later,  when 
making  our  adieus,  I  was  cordially 
included  in  an  invitation  to  dine 
with  the  minister  and  his  family  on 
the  very  next  Sunday. 

We  left  the  ball  early,  very  early 
in  the  morning — but  most  of  the 
others  remained  to  breakfast  in  the 
garden.  It  was  only  on  leaving 
that  I  was  made  to  understand  that 
adieus,  with  handshakes,  must  not 
be  stinted  at  a  Mexican  party  but 
made  to  each  guest,  while  all  the 
others  frankly  stare. 

It  will  be  quite  impossible  to  forget 
that  long  white  and  gold  room  with 
the  blaze  of  lights  at  each  end,  the  cor- 
ners deep  and  black  with  chaperones. 

But    those     nice     ladies    with     the 


136  Mexico  City 

bright  eyes  and  the  soft  voices — they 
did  not  embrace  me  after  the  fash- 
ion of  the  stage-parent  and  swiftly 
kiss  me  on  cheeks  and  forehead — 
that  was  my  first  appearance.  I 
was  very  sorry.  It  was  such  a 
pretty  and  dramatic  ceremony.  The 
floor  near  the  native  musicians  was 
bright  with  young  men  and  maid- 
ens, embarrassingly  observant  and 
who  would,  I  very  well  knew,  con- 
strue any  mistake  of  mine  as  a  na- 
tional, not  an  individual,  blunder. 
Oh!  why  should  I  say  goodbye  to 
any  of  them?  Why  shouldn't  I  turn 
and  flee? 

The  next  time,  for  I .  have  vowed 
the  vow,  I  shall  certainly  remain  to 
breakfast — aye!  to  luncheon,  to  din- 
ner! Then  shall  I  honorably  escape 


An  Idler's  Note-Book          137 

an    excess   of    farewells    in  the    first 
person. 

Very  unfortunately,  the  Sunday 
dinner  invitation  had  to  be  re- 
gretted. But  later  on  there  came 
an  entire  day  in  this  country  home, 
with  the  minister's  charming  but 
non- English  speaking  wife  and  his 
merry  daughters. 

They  were  very  pretty  women  and 
daintily  bred — they  usually  wore  silken 
Vienna-made  frocks — and  each  im- 
pressed us  as  an  ideal  hostess.  Yet, 
inconsistently  enough,  they  made  no 
mention  whatever  of  any  progressive 
game  or  guessing  contest,  with  cut- 
glass  and  sterling  silver  prizes.  It 
was  quite  ridiculous,  to  be  sure! 
How  could  we  consider  ourselves 


138  Mexico  City 

properly  entertained?  But  Mexican 
society  is  still  shockingly  primitive — 
they  simply  do  not  know  how  to 
get  bored. 

Immediately  on  our  arrival  that 
day  (after  the  dogs  had  barked  and 
after  we  had  passed  in  grand  re- 
view before  three  generations  of 
servants),  we  had  wine  and  French 
cakes  in  the  salon  and  a  distress- 
ingly long  pow-wow  in  Spanish — and 
oh!  so  elaborate,  so  mellifluous,  that 
the  mere  thought  of  the  dialect  of 
Posey  County  and  the  Bowery  was 
a  positive  refreshment. 

Then  there  was  an  hour  or  more 
of  Schumann  and  Grieg  and  Chopin 
(but  no  "rag-time")  interpreted  by 
a  native  daughter  of  the  republic 
just  back  from  her  finishing- school  in 


An  Idler's  Note-Book          139 

Germany.  And  after  that  we  were 
given  an  opportunity  to  admire  some 
boarding-school  drawings  arid  hand- 
paintings  and  bits  of  needle-work. 

But  most  of  that  delightful  day 
was  spent  in  the  green  twilight  of 
the  dear  old  garden,  a  pleasure- 
garden  of  exceptional  beauty  planned 
by  a  Spanish  nobleman  of  taste  and 
wealth  two  hundred  years  before. 

It  was  old  and  shady  and  sweet- 
smelling,  it  was  not^  too  trim;  it 
was — —  But  a  description  of  its  ar- 
tistic values  would  be  quite  impossible. 

There  were  about  forty  acres  in 
the  high-walled  inclosure  and,  along 
the  broad  walks  and  under  the 
great,  strange  trees  that  arched  high 
above,  were  enchanting  tangles  of 
dreadfully  rare  shrubs  and  flowers. 


140  Mexico  City 

At  the  far  end  were  the  ruined 
baths — the  mossy  arches  draped  with 
rose-vines;  and  then  there  were 
grottoes  and  fountains  with  summer- 
houses  and  a  bowling-alley.  And?  at 
the  intersection  of  several  shady  paths, 
there  was  a  shrine  of  Our  Lady 
of  Guadalupe.  It  was  a  lovely,  moss- 
grown  ruin  and  suggestive  of  a  very 
great  deal  of  poetry.  Yet  I  found  I 
would  have  preferred  a  sun-dial. 

It  seemed  a  sin  to  chatter  undef 
those  mighty  trees  and  in  that  great 
and  meaningful  stillness.  And  the 
tender  green  gloom,  the  great  and 
eloquent  peace  inspired  such  a  lofty 
sort  of  abstraction, — then  finally  a 
pleasing  melancholy. 

Our  hostess,  as  in  due  time  she 
led  the  way  to  the  dining-room  of 


An  Idler's  Note-Book          141 

the  villa,  made  a  long  speech  in 
Spanish — supplemented  by  her  daugh- 
ters in  a  sprightly  chorus  of  French 
and  German  and  English.  I  was 
personally  obliged  for  the  English 
(when  you  get  as  far  as  irregular 
verbs,  all  the  other  languages  are 
such  a  bore!)  and  pained  extremely 
to  learn  that  the  cook-lady  of  the 
household,  having  attended  a  fiesta 
in  the  city,  was  already  several 
days  behind  schedule  time.  They 
did  not  wait  luncheon  for  her,  which 
was  wisdom. 

This  was  not  an  isolated  case. 
We  chanced  upon  a  number  of  rich 
unfortunates  whose  maid-servants  and 
man-servants  frequently  mixed  po- 
tions with  their  pulque  that  made 
them  forgetful  of  common  little 


142  Mexico  City 

things  like  Time  and  Duty.  If  one 
has  vast  sympathy  for  the  down- 
trodden and  distressed,  and  is  skilled 
in  the  ethics  of  consolation,  she 
certainly  should  abide  in  Mexico  and 
give  ear  to  the  jeremiads  of  the 
Mexican  housewife  with  a  house 
swarming  with  servants.  She  is 
not  needed  here  in  the  States—- 
where one  can  if  necessary  livp 
peacefully  at  study-clubs  and  recep- 
tions and  matinees,  feeding  at  a 
restaurant  and  taking  refuge  at 
night  in  a  flat  or  a  private  hotel. 
If  I  were  a  Mexican  lady  I  would 
pray  to  the  Virgin  of  Guadalupe 
all  the  way  up  the  Street  of  Degra- 
dation to  send  me  an  accomplished 
cook,  one  who  eschewed  bull-fights 
and  fiestas  and  family  funerals.  If 


An  Idler's  Note-Book         143 

she  didn't  come,  I  would  in  my 
despair  either  plunge  from  the 
cathedral  tower  or  buy  a  cook-book. 
The  mantilla  of  the  minister's 
chief  cook  had  fallen  temporarily 
upon  young  sub-cooks  of  habits  more 
certain  but  reputedly  less  talent;  and 
the  gentle  hostess,  who  understood 
that  Americans  generally  lunched 
on  fried  pork  and  ice-water  and 
buckwheat-cakes,  did  fear  that  her 
guests  would  find  nothing  suited  to 
their  tastes.  But  she  looked  encour- 
aged after  the  third  course. 

So  the  luncheon  we  had  that  day 
was  of  necessity  extremely  simple. 
There  were  really  but  eight  courses 
and  we  sat  at  table  hardly  an  hour 
and  a  half. 


144  Mexico  City 

Down  there  not  even  the  peons 
have  to  bother  about  the  circling 
flight  of  time  and  the  simple  lunch- 
eons or  breakfasts  (they  are  a  com- 
posite of  French,  Spanish,  Italian 
and  native  cooking)  sometimes  make 
a  Yankee  apprehensively  yearn  for 
plain  bread  and  cheese  and  apple- 
sauce. Or  a  digestive  apparatus  run 
by  electricity. 

In  spite  of  the  dreaming  in  that 
poetic  garden  on  the  other  side  of 
the  patio  it  must  be  recorded  the 
gringo  portion  of  that  luncheon  dis- 
appeared in  a  manner  quite  dis- 
heartening to  a  lazy  cook.  But  then 
we  were  always  disgracefully  hungry 
in  Mexico — hungry  as  peons,  and 
our  appetites  could  not  be  twisted 
into  compliments  to  any  cook-lady. 


An  Idler's  Note-Book          145 

Here,  for  the  curious,  is  set  down 
a  true  and  faithful  copy  of  the 
menu  from  my  notes,  which  were 
scribbled  that  evening  when  we  had 
returned  to  the  hotel,  in  a  deluge 
of  rain — our  umbrella  a  parasol  of 
white  silk  and  chiffon! 

Rice  Soup. 

Spiced  Rice. 

Sardines.       Eggs  scrambled  with  tomatoes. 

Mutton  Chops. 

Summer- squash  chopped  and  fried  with  chilis 
and  tomatoes. 

Roast  Pork. 

Boiled  Potatoes.  French  Bread. 

Fried  Brussels  Sprouts,  green  Chili  sauce. 

Frijoles. 
Dulces.  French  Cakes. 

Three  Wines.         Beer. 
Two  bottles  of  Distilled  Water. 


146  Mexico  City 

Extremely  simple,  yet  I  encour- 
agingly sent  my  profound  regards  to 
the  little  sub-cooks  when  the  frijoles 
were  taken  away;  but,  with  an  abso- 
lutely fine  consideration,  I  withheld 
the  private  opinion  that  promotions 
in  the  kitchen  were  in  order  and 
the  return  of  the  chief  cook  a  mat- 
ter of  merited  indifference.  For  I 
discerned  that  the  fastidious  young 
ladies  of  the  household  could  not 
be  induced  to  eat  of  the  pottage 
prepared  by  the  humble  amateurs — 
and  they  had  never  heard  of  cook- 
ing-schools and  chafing-dish  clubs. 

Then,  sauntering  about  in  the 
patio,  we  discovered  an  ancient  stone 
staircase,  which  we  climbed  half 
timidly  only  to  find  ourselves  on  a 
charming  azotea,  shaded  by  the  tops 


An  Idler's  Note-Book          147 

of  the  patio-trees.  Then  we  strolled 
out  into  the  dreamy  old  garden 
again,  to  a  summer-house  near  the 
big  fountain,  and  there  we  had  fruit 
and  coffee  and  listened  to  the  legends 
of  hidden  treasure  and  ghosts. 

I  much  preferred  the  ghosts,  with 
the  old  bowling-alley  and  ruined 
summer-house  for  a  background.  If 
that  vine-clad  old  place  was  not 
really  haunted,  it  was  merely  be- 
cause Mexican  ghosts  lacked  the 
proper  artistic  perception. 

The  cool,  violet-scented  air  tossed 
gently  the  greenery  which  rioted 
along  the  mossy,  yellow  wall  of  the 
garden  and  the  shadows  slowly  grew 
longer  and  longer.  The  old  villa 
gleamed  and  shimmered  like  a  pearl 
through  the  trees.  Every  one  was 


148  Mexico  City 

in  a  placid,  gracious  mood  and  in 
harmony  with  the  spirit  of  the  gar- 
den. 

Was  it  really  a  dream,  an  en- 
chantment? Would  I  wake  up  else- 
where and  be  compelled  to  look 
always  upon  terra-cotta  houses,  each 
boasting  thirteen  styles  of  architec- 
ture and  flanked  by  nasturtiums  and 
magenta  petunias? 

Then   was   I   saddened. 

But  after  a  little  while,  as  I  was 
stirring  my  coffee  and  grudgingly 
paying  conversational  tribute,  I  dis- 
covered there  was  an  illusion  to  en- 
joy. I  kept  very  still,  and,  in  the 
green  gloom  of  the  distant  paths,  I 
began  to  espy  wraiths  of  certain 
beautiful  ladies  and  brave  lords; — 
they  once  meandered  over  the  pages 


An  Idler's  Note-Book          149 

of  old  Spanish  romances  and  Italian 
ballads — they  once  lived  and  tragic- 
ally died,  most  of  them,  in  old-time 
dramas. 

I  gazed  dreamily  and  not  too  direct, 
so  they  strolled  quite  near  after  a 
time, — plucking  roses  and  jasmine 
sprays;  they  stood  at  the  fountain's 
edge,  with  clasped  hands  and 
glance  exceeding  tender. 

The  farewells,  I  observed,  took 
place  at  the  little  old  blue  and  yel- 
low shrine.  (One  of  the  tiles  now 
does  acceptable  service  on  my  writ- 
ing-desk as  a  paper-weight.  Explan- 
atively,  the  youngest  daughter  of 
the  household  did  pluck  it  out  for 
me  and  did  wash  it  in  the  waters 
of  the  fountain — and  I  accepted  it 
greedily.) 


1 50  Mexico  City 

Their  happy  laughter  and  their 
extravagant  protestations  and  their 
reluctant  farewells  I  distinctly  saw 
but  heard  not;  for,  alas!  in  the 
sun,  those  fine  ladies  in  soft  bro- 
cades and  agleam  with  jewels  cast 
no  shade.  Neither  did  their  cava- 
liers, so  handsome  in  doublet  and 
hose,  with  velvet  Romeo  cloaks  and 
plumed  caps  and  dangling  rapiers. 

Ah,  yes!  while  I  had  to  make  a 
long  pretence  of  sipping  black, 
syrupy  coffee  and  while  the  others 
were  eating  blue  figs  and  merrily 
punning  in  four  languages,  I  dis- 
tinctly beheld — trooping  up  and  down 
those  mossy  garden -paths  right  be 
fore  us — such  dainty  ladies  and  such 
decorative  lords  of  the  picturesque 
long  ago ! 


An  Idler's  Note-Book          151 

But  no  more  shall  I  see  them. 
That  venerable  garden,  with  its 
tropic  vines  and  shrubs,  with  its 
Sleeping-Beauty  tangle  of  rose-trees 
and  strange  lilies,  is  modernized 
now;  it  has  been  " cleaned  up." 
Alas!  and  alas!  it  is  lighted  by 
electricity. 

There  is  a  sadness,  a  not-to-be- 
assuaged  sorrow  about  such  a  change. 

But  of  my  day  in  that  old  Mex- 
ican garden  I  am  resolved  to  cher- 
ish only  an  unmarred  recollection, 
and,  so  long  as  I  shall  wander  by 
"Time's  runaway  river,"  it  is  to  be 
one  of  my  great  and  unchanging 
joys — a  beautiful  memory  ineffaceable. 


A  Street  Ramble 


A  STREET   RAMBLE 

Why  is  it  that  one  never  so 
forcefully  realizes  as  on  the  day 
after  a  big  party  that  this  life  is 
not  a  dazzling  little  cluster  of  ec- 
stacies? 

That  morning  after  the  S min- 
ister's really  charming  ball  out  at  his 
country-house,  the  atmosphere  seemed 
surcharged  with  unamiability  and 
general  infelicities;  for  each  of  us 
had  fallen  out  of  love  with  Life, 
dear  Life. 

I  myself  was  infinitely  melancholy 
and  suspicioned  that  I  was  doomed 
to  death  by  hanging  in  the  imme- 


156  Mexico  City 

diate  future;  moreover,  I  was  confi- 
dent that  no  one  on  all  the  earth 
or  the  seas  cared. 

It  was  of  course  the  direct  result 
of  the  menu  of  the  Mexican  party- 
supper,  an  institution  that  would 
induce  acutest  melancholy  in  an 
ostrich.  One  a  week  produces  a  pes- 
simist; two,  a  misanthrope;  and 
three  —  no  gringo  ever  survives 
three.  But  at  that  hour  our  melan- 
choly eluded  analysis. 

Immediately  after  bread-and-choco- 
late  that  morning,  it  was  noon  by 
the  tenor  bell  on  the  old  Church 
of  the  Profesa,  and,  to  dispel  the 
mental  miasma  that  was  ours,  we 
all  amicably  agreed  and  heroically 
upon  a  long  tramp  about  the  streets 
of  the  city. 


An  Idler's  Note-Book          157 

It  was  on  the  way  down  to  the 
Alameda  that  we  stopped  to  enthuse, 
experimentally,  over  the  old  Porce- 
lain Palace  and  to  hear  the  legend 
of  the  builder. 

He  was  a  young  man,  a  too  gay 
young  man,  of  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury, and  he  squandered  all  his  sub- 
stance in  riotous  living.  Then,  so 
they  tell  the  tale,  he  went  to  his 
father  for  funds,  but  that  gentleman 
turned  him  away  with  a  disagree- 
able Spanish  proverb  about  shocking 
spendthrifts  and  their  inability  to 
ever  build  " porcelain  palaces/' 

And  the  proud  young  man  re- 
pented of  his  empty  money-bags  and 
his  evil  ways  —  he  reformed  and 
speedily  amassed  a  great  fortune. 
The  legend  is  minus  the  method, 


158  Mexico  City 

but  pirates  and  brigands  were  the 
quick-rich  of  that  period.  Then,  to 
prove  that  his  father  was  a  false 
prophet,  the  young  man  built  this 
quaint  palace  of  blue  and  white 
tiles.  It  is  one  of  the  sights  of 
modern  Mexico. 

We  next  halted  at  the  Hotel  Jar- 
din,  which  was  once  a  convent  of 
the  rich  and  terribly  powerful  order 
of  San  Francisco.  Their  splendid 
buildings  once  covered  fifteen  acres 
of  the  city's  heart,  but  Comonfort 
cut  a  street  through  them.  (No  good 
Catholic  will  walk  on  that  street 
yet,  so  they  say.) 

My  purpose  was  a  little  pilgrimage 
to  the  balcony-rail  on  the  other  side 
of  which  part  of  that  prose-idyl, 


An  Idler's  Note-Book          159 

"A  White  Umbrella  in  Mexico," 
was  written.  I  picked  my  way  be- 
tween the  puddles  and  the  mossy 
flower-pots  of  the  old  patio  garden, 
beautiful  and  miasmatic.  I  located 
the  balcony-rail  and  got  a  snap-shot 
just  as  the  sun  dodged  under  a 
cloud.  Too  late,  I  unearthed  the 
fact  that  I  had  a  friend  whose 
friend's  friend  knew  the  present 
occupant  of  the  F.  Hopkinson  Smith 
suite  and  Mr.  Moon  of  Zacat£cas! 

As  we  processioned  along  a  nar- 
row, cobbled  street,  where  the  smell 
of  old  pulque  made  one  homesick 
for  Chinatown,  we  stopped  to  gaze  in 
at  the  den  of  a  charcoal-seller.  With 
its  velvet,  midnight  shadows,  there 
was  no  opening  but  the  one  door, 


160  Mexico  City 

— with  the  really  delightful  pottery 
on  the  blackened  walls  its  only 
high-light,  the  den  would  certainly 
have  turned  the  brain  of  a  Rem- 
brandt. Near  the  doorway,  bepow- 
dered  and  begrimed  with  the 
glittering,  black  dust,  and  sur- 
rounded by  sacks  and  baskets  of 
the  charcoal  —  squatted  the  almost 
naked  wife  and  children.  They 
would  have  been  a  revelation  in 
make-up  to  a  burnt-cork  artiste — yet 
only  a  degenerate  would  regard 
with  anything  but  deep,  deep  com- 
passion such  wretched  human  beings. 
There  are  varieties  of  picturesque- 
nesses, — this  sort  made  us  ill  and 
unhappy. 

Then     we     determinedly    tramped 


An  Idler's  Note-Book          161 

around  and  around  in  the  beautiful 
greenwood  called  the  Alameda,  past 
the  place  where  not  so  very  long 
ago  they  burned  all  the  heretics. 

And  then  along  the  Paseo  as  far 
as  the  glorieta  of  the  statue  of 
Guatemozin,  the  last  emperor  of  the 
Aztecs.  Regardless  of  nationality, 
one's  heart  beats  high  with  pride 
at  the  memory  of  the  spirit,  the 
courage  of  this  ancient  hero.  The 
statue,  reared  by  the  descendants 
of  his  enemies,  is  a  noble  one,  and 
the  bas-relief  panel  representing  the 
torture  by  fire  of  the  royal  captive 
justly  entitled  to  one-third  of  an 
afternoon. 

It  is  not  surprising  that  the  Con- 
queror did  not  rest  well  at  night; 
Gautemozin's  farewell,  for  one  thing, 


i  62  Mexico  City 

must  have  etched  itself  in  his  brain. 
And  such  little  etchings  murder  sleep. 

Retracing  our  steps,  we  were  fre- 
quently besieged  by  young  beggar- 
ladies,  the  descendants  perhaps  of 
some  of  the  old  caciques.  Who 
knows?  And  who  possessed  of  a 
copper  would  resist  the  entreaty  of 
the  soft,  mournful  eyes,  the  low 
music  of  the  appeal? 

44  Little  lady,  for  the  love  of  Sacred 
Mary,  give  me  a  cent,  a  little  cent!" 
4  *  Give  me  a  cent,  for  the  love  of 
God,  young  lady!  Young  lady!" 

Alas!  the  velvet  of  the  little  voice 
wears  away  with  maturity. 

That  was  the  afternoon  I  discov- 
ered the  most  charming  house  in 
Mexico  City.  It  was  hardly  big 


An  Idler's  Note-Book          163 

enough  for  a  palace,  but  its  dignity 
and  its  unique  beauty,  tinged  with 
an  unmistakable  little  air  of  romance 
and  the  sadness  of  decay,  imme- 
diately won  my  heart. 

Dainty  vines  had  climbed  from 
the  inner  court,  over  the  roof,  to 
fall  in  cascades  of  greenery  over 
the  front — which  was  pink  and  faded 
to  a  tone  most  delightsome. 

There  were,  alas!  no  senoritas  in 
any  of  the  balconies  nor  at  any  of 
the  grated  French  windows,  but  there 
was  an  impressive  porttro  on  guard 
at  the  front  doorway — through  which 
a  couple  of  furniture  vans  could 
swagger  without  accident. 

The  mighty  doors  were  heavily 
panelled  and  studded  with  iron  and, 
in  the  years  gone  by,  may  well 


164  Mexico  City 

have  added  to  the  owner's  mental 
peace,  when  robbers  and  assassins 
knocked  and  whenever  there  hap- 
pened to  be  a  political  revolution. 

Through  the  passageway  there 
was  a  glimpse  of  the  patio-garden, 
with  its  jungle  of  bananas  and 
palms,  its  fountain  and  two  haughty 
peacocks  mincing  along  the  tiled 
walk. 

Over  the  street  entrance  swung 
an  immense  lantern,  from  a  charm- 
ingly wrought  iron  bracket ;  of  course 
it  had  not  been  lighted  in  perhaps 
twenty  years — it  was  dimmed  and 
corroded  delightfully. 

And  then,  on  one  side  of  the 
big,  mediaeval-looking  doors,  was  the 
best  old  knocker  it  has  ever  been 
my  wretched  lot  to  covet.  It  was 


An  Idler's  Note-Book          165 

never  the  least  trouble  to  walk  five 
blocks  out  of  the  way,  even  in  mud 
and  in  rain,  to  see  that  knocker. 

We  tramped  gloomily  along  the 
pavements  of  the  Main  Causeway, 
passed  the  very  spot  of  Alvarado's 
Leap  and  the  Church  of  the  Martyrs, 
with  its  time-scarred  tablet, — a  me- 
morial to  those  who  fell  to  a  ter- 
rible death  on  that  sad  night  so 
long  ago. 

We  muse  pessimistically  on  the 
fate  of  all  nations  and  many  indi- 
viduals; for  we  could  perceive  that 
the  whole  world  was  very  wretched 
and  that  there  was  joy  in  nothing. 

We  waved  our  hand  at  a  yellow 
street-car  driver,  tooting  a  mournful 


1 66  Mexico  City 

tin  horn,  and  with  him  we  journeyed 
out  to  Popotla. 

There  we  viewed  the  poor  old 
rag  of  a  cypress-tree  under  which, 
one  rainy  night,  three  hundred  and 
eighty  years  ago,  Mr.  Hernando 
Cortes  spent  a  very  bad  half  hour, 

By  the  time  we  reached  the  his- 
toric spot,  a  fine  and  melancholy 
rain  had  very  appropriately  set  in. 
We  could  the  more  fully  sympathize 
with  the  great  general. 

But  it  took  us  only  a  scant  ten 
minutes. 

After  a  time,  the  rain  had  ceased 
in  order  to  display  a  gorgeously 
crimsoned  west,  we  found  ourselves 
in  the  gloomy  little  national  ceme- 
tery near  the  Alameda. 


An  Idler's  Note-Book          167 

The  care-taker,  who  had  fought 
with  the  great  Juarez,  accompanied 
us  about  and  proudly  discoursed  on 
certain  of  the  illustrious  dead.  Most 
of  them  departed  this  life  by  special 
request. 

This  was  my  first  Mexican  ceme- 
tery. It  was  very  different  from 
the  little  burying-ground  on  the  hill- 
side in  my  native  village,  but  it  was 
no  less  suggestive  of  the  Great  Peace 
of  Death,  the  Complete  Consolation. 
The  high  wall  about  the  inclosure 
was  scarred  and  discolored  by  Time, 
and  it  made  a  shadow  quite  as 
mournful  as  the  regulation  cypress 
or  willow. 

In  this  wall  were  many  cells, 
each  one  occupied  for  a  term  of 
years  by  a  dead  tenant;  if,  at  the 


1 68  Mexico  City 

end  of  that  time,  it  was  cheerily 
explained  to  us,  the  rent  of  the 
narrow  house  is  not  forthcoming-  in 
advance,  the  tenant  is  ejected  and 
annihilated  by  the  sexton.  The 
merry  old  fellow  showed  us  the 
fragments  of  some  poor  Yorick  who 
had  that  day  been  found  in  arrears; 
on  the  morrow,  he  was  to  be  un- 
ceremoniously mixed  forever  with 
the  elements. 

The  grandees  are  permanently 
buried. 

The  old  sexton  (I  had  seen  him 
before — when  he  was  digging  the 
grave  of  Ophelia)  paused  and  orated 
at  the  tombs  of  Saragossa,  Comon- 
fort,  Guerrero  and  Maximilian's  Me- 
jia.  But  he  did  not  break  their 
sleep;  none  of  them,  not  one,  rose 


An  Idler's  Note-Book          169 

tip  to  bow  thanks  or  to  contradict. 
The  sexton  lived  a  unique  dream- 
life  and,  considering  the  environ- 
ment, he  was  strangely  cheerful; 
there  seemed  no  heaviness  whatever 
under  his  mirth.  He  exulted  in  the 
companionship  of  the  mighty  dead, 
he  lived  over  again  each  day  his 
martial  youth  and  was  merry. 

Recalling  that  day  when  Maxi- 
milian and  his  followers  were  dis- 
posed of,  he  hopped  ecstatically  about 
and  impersonated  each  in  turn  so 
cleverly  that  the  scene  was  really 
there  before  us. 

The  unfortunate  Maximilian  at  his 
hands  received  the  credit  of  entire 
calmness — he  silently  laid  his  hand 
upon  his  heart;  and  Miramon,  who 
stood  in  the  center  of  the  group, 


170  Mexico  City 

nonchalantly  curled  his  mustache. 
But  poor  Mejia,  valiant  enough,  so 
the  old  man  assured  us, — when  fac- 
ing an  earthly  danger,  shook  just 
like  a  man  with  the  palsy. 

The  sexton's  enjoyment  of  the  re- 
hearsal of  this  historic  tragedy  and  his 
greatest  memory  was  beautiful  to  see. 

At  one  side  and  half-hidden  by 
the  trumpery  tin  and  bead  garlands 
of  his  adoring  countrymen,  was  the 
mausoleum  of  the  one-time  fierce 
Juarez.  He  sleeps  very  quietly  now, 
in  the  dim  light  of  the  old  ceme- 
tery, the  damp  air  heavy  with  the 
scent  of  roses  and  violets.  Above 
the  tomb  is  the  famous  marble  fig- 
ure of  this  modern  Aztec  hero,  with 
his  weary  head  resting  in  the  lap 
of  Mexico. 


An  Idler's  Note-Book          171 

We  enthused  over  its  great  beauty 
very  satisfactorily  indeed  for  Ameri- 
cans, and  so  he  who  had  proudly 
marched  under  the  banner  of  the 
great  Juarez  bent  his  poor  old  back 
and,  with  infinite  care,  selected  for 
us  certain  of  the  cut  flowers  at  the 
foot  of  the  tomb.  And  of  this  mark 
of  high  favor,  such  a  particularly 
fine  appreciation  was  shown  that  we 
were  all  urged  to  come  again  and 
at  any  time.  Furthermore,  we  might 
bring  our  detested  cameras  inside 
the  gates! 

But  none  of  our  friends  ever 
credited  that  report. 

A  few  more  short  days  and  then 
will  come  the  low-voiced  messenger 
with  the  order  for  that  merry  little 
sexton  to  take  possession  of  his  own 


Mexico  City, 

narrow  house  in  that  quiet  village. 
Only  a  little  folding  of  his  hands 
to  sleep,  a  little  slumber, — then  in 
the  Unknown  Country  he  will  be 
the  equal  of  Mexico's  greatest  and 
mightiest  and  the  comrade  of  even 
his  revered  Juarez. 

May  his  last  hour  here  hold  only 
calmness. 

When  the  gates  had  clanged  be- 
hind us  and  we  were  once  again 
under  the  broad  sky  and  in  the 
midst  of  the  busy  streets,  then  sud- 
denly did  all  the  sad  and  wretched 
earth  seem  sweet  and  dear, — with  a 
great  rush  our  desire  for  life  re- 
turned to  us — we  forgot  the  disgusts, 
we  remembered  only  our  admira- 
tions. In  the  soft  dusk,  with  the 


An  Idler's  Note-Book          173 

the  yellow  street-lights  appearing  and 
with  the  many  sounds  of  a  city-life 
to  encourage  us,  we  no  longer  were 
wearied  pessimists- — we  once  again 
were  brave  and  cheerful. 

What  to  us  then  were  Death  and 
his  great  mysteries?  And  an  old 
cemetery  of  dead  enmities  and  dead 
loves  and  dead  ambitions?  It  was 
glorious  to  breathe  in  so  good  and 
beautiful  a  world,  and  to  look  up 
at  the  stars  and  to  continue  indefi- 
nitely the  pursuit  of  favorite  phan- 
toms. 


Personal  and  Reminiscent 


PERSONAL   AND   REMINISCENT 

It  is  disconcerting  to  a  self-respect- 
ing and  properly  ambitious  Ameri- 
can to  journey  to  a  far  country 
and,  after  a  sojourn  of  whole 
weeks,  to  discover  his  inability  to 
perfectly  understand  a  people, — their 
civilization,  their  aims,  their  inevit- 
able destiny. 

Treatises  on  America  and  its 
numerous  tribes  are  compiled  in  a 
few  hours  by  mere  French  and 
English  persons  speeding  across  the 
country  and  as  they  nonchalantly 
glance  from  the  car-windows.  They 
elude  the  comic  weeklies,  they  get 
177 


178  Mexico  City 

put  into  thick  books  and  become 
standard,  eventually  forcing  Ameri- 
cans into  one  of  the  great  interna- 
tional societies  fof  Mutual  Deprecia- 
tion. 

But  such  brilliance  failed  to  in- 
spire me;  it  goaded  me  into  a  miser- 
able, an  envious  gloom, — for  Mexico 
was  reticent  with  me.  All  her  motives 
and  intents,  every  heartache  and 
each  detail  of  her  destiny  she  re- 
fused to  uncover  beneath  the  little 
electric  glare  of  my  intellect.  I 
scorned  to  insist  and  pride  pre- 
vented an  expostulation.  But  I 
grieved  much. 

And  then  I  forgot  all  about  it, 
the  dear  old  City  of  Mexico  proved 
so  enchanting;  there  was  on  every 
side  such  an  infinity  of  things  bliss- 


An  Idler's  Note-Book          179 

ful  and  dear  to  charm  me.  Why 
try  to  understand  any  of  them? 

It  was  good  to  forget  for  a  time 
the  subtleties  and  complexities  of 
an  up-to-date  civilization;  and,  ex- 
cept the  street-cars  and  the  tele- 
graph-pole processions,  there  was 
nothing  in  all  those  strange,  bright 
streets  to  remind  me  of  a  sober, 
work-a-day  world. 

Mexico  is  a  great  enchantress. 
She  speedily  transformed  me  from 
a  dreary-thoughted  slave  into  a  fear- 
less and  ambitionless  idler;  and  she 
left  me  never  a  depressing  memory 
of  my  former  state. 

I  forgot,  in  the  tranquillity  of  that 
metamorphosis,  all  dissonances  and 
disquietness ;  I  gained  the  courage 
for  present  happiness;  I  dreamed 


i8o  Mexico  City 

and  idled  away  the  days  precisely 
as  though  life  knew  no  bitternesses 
and  glooms.  Nor  distressingly  great 
activities. 

Then,  when  I  wandered  joyously 
about  the  market-places,  gradually 
possessing  myself  of  such  rich  earthly 
treasure  as  rainbow  pottery,  scraps 
of  altar  brocades  (a  trifle  faded  and 
worn,  perhaps),  old  rosaries  and 
worm-eaten  books  (bound  in  parch- 
ment by  some  Friar  Jerome  and  yel- 
lowed exquisitely  by  Time), — even 
until  the  little  mozo  could  carry  no 
more — until  I  myself  had  left  neither 
one  copper  cent  nor  a  finger  on 
which  to  hang  another  rosary  or 
pulque- jug;— 

When  I  tiptoed  into  some  gray 
old  church  for  a  somber  reverie  and 


An  Idler's  Note-Book          181 

where  the  orange-colored  candle-flame 
revealed  black-robed  Fiamettas  and 
Catherines  and  Carmens  confessing 
their  sins  of  the  week  to  stern- 
visaged  priests,  who  sat  motionless 
as  statues  within  the  open  confes- 
sionals;— 

When  I  gleefully  exchanged  cop- 
per coin  of  the  realm  for  sticky, 
very  pink  dulces  and  shared  them 
with  my  devoted  little  friends  of 
the  fleeting  hour; — 

When  I  sat  myself  down  on  some 
mossy  stone  bench  and  made  myself 
believe  I  was  one  of  the  barefooted 
masses,  ragged,  unwashed — my  one 
possible  supper  an  uncertain  share 
in  the  family  dish  of  frijoles; — 

When  I  in  a  "blue"  carriage  (with 
a  fat,  swarthy  man  on  the  box,  in 


1 82  Mexico  City 

a  dazzling  zarape  and  a  tremendous 
hat  of  black  beaver  and  silver  pas- 
sementerie) arrived  at  the  gates, 
where,  in  the  early  starlight,  were 
crowded  the  sad-faced  poor  tp  catch 
a  glimpse  of  some  great  fete — and 
as  I  (this  was  such  a  pleasing,  royal 
fancy)  directed  my  slaves  to  throw 
handfuls  of  gold  among  the  hungry- 
eyed  populace; — 

Who  was  unkind  and  rose  up 
with  scornful  finger  to  disturb  my 
dreamings  and  to  remind  me  that 
in  reality  I  was  a  ^oyless,  Ameri- 
can drudge,  an  unconsidered  unit  of 
a  utilitarian,  an  avaricious  mass? 
A  representative  of  a  purely  me- 
chanical civilization  and  of  a  nation 
of  bosses  and  trusts  and  automatic 
art? 


'  On  the  Viga  Canal 


An  Idler's  Note-Book          183 

Of  course  I  was  sub-conscious  all 
the  time  of  my  nationality  and  the 
dreadful  other  things;  yet,  in  my 
little  vacation-world  of  romancing 
and  make-believe,  I  was  quite  too 
generous  to  accent  any  such  per- 
sonal superiority  or  good-fortune. 

So,  while  I  wandered  and  listened 
and  wondered,  I  really  made  no 
pretence  of  understanding  Mexico 
nor  her  mode  of  enchantment;  and 
while  I  promptly  admitted  her 
charms,  I  refused  to  dissect  them. 
Those  sadly  analytic  people  who 
explain  so  much  and  who  can  tell 
why  a  little  child  likes  bright  red 
and  why  one  is  joyous  on  a  day  in 
springtime,  are  a  positive  menace 
to  sanity  in  an  age  too  replete  with 
disillusions. 


1 84  Mexico  City 

It  is  possible  to  wholly  forget  that 
life  is  duty,  in  that  enchanting 
dream-country  commonly  spoken  of 
as  Mexico;  and,  with  periodic  bun- 
dles of  books  and  papers  from  the 
States,  to  forever  luxuriate  in  ideally 
tumbled  -  down,  Italianesque  villas; 
where,  in  the  middle  distances,  bright 
beings  effectively  group  themselves 
and  where  good  natured  little  maids 
come  at  the  clap  of  the  hand,  and 
unclose  your  eyes,  when  you  feel 
equal  to  the  fatigue  of  gazing  out 
at  the  noon  sunlight.  This,  in  the 
golden  land  of  the  Montezumas,  is 
an  idyl  and  not  in  the  least  shiftless 
and  disgraceful. 

Ah,  yes!  I  might  have  been  con- 
tent to  have  dreamed  away  one 
life-time  down  in  Mexico  somewhere, 


An  Idler's  Note-Book          185 

but  it  was  not  practicable  and  alas! 
dreaming  does  not  seem  to  be  my 
destiny. 

But  then,  as  the  discomfited  fox 
suspected  that  certain  grapes  were 
sour,  so  am  I  inclined  to  suspect 
that  my  permanent  Mexican  content 
would  have  proved  a  misleading 
variety.  Principally  because. 

And  then  what  American  -  bred 
young  woman  would  unprotestingly 
live  in  a  country  where  there  are 
neither  matinee  clubs,  nor  women's 
parliaments,  nor  bicycle  teas,  nor 
pre-Raphaelite  art  societies,  nor  golf 
tournaments,  nor  lovely  Maeterlinck 
circles? 

The  Woman  of  Mexico  is  serenely 
happy.  She  doesn't  work — all  her 


1 86  Mexico  City 

male  kinfolks  assure  her  it  isn't 
lady-like.  She  is  calm,  she  is  sweet 
and  she  is  distractingly  picturesque 
— when  she  wears  her  very  own 
clothes  and  headgear.  And  she  has 
the  good  taste  to  avoid  morbid 
self-scrutiny  and  idle  self-culture. 

We  of  the  States  may  gaze  at  our 
Mexican  neighbor  and  covet  all  too 
vainly  the  serene,  lily-of-the-field 
leisure  apparently  hers  forever;  but, 
if  we  are  not  quite  too  superior, 
we  can  be  terribly  avenged.  We 
can  keep  the  shirt-waist  and  sailor- 
hat  in  vogue — they  are  absolutely 
fatal  to  the  feminine  loveliness  of 
Mexico,  so  much  vaunted.  One 
searches  wearily  for  the  typical  Mex- 
ican beauty  in  the  fashionable  crowds 
driving  on  the  Paseo  or  shopping  on 


An  Idler's  Note-Book          187 

San  Francisco  Street.  But  some 
late  afternoon  you  discover  her  as 
she  comes  from  confession,  in  a  soft, 
black  gown  and  with  the  black  re- 
bozo  draped  coquettishly  and  dis- 
creetly. She  flits  by,  self-conscious 
as  a  school  miss — you  catch  a  flash 
of  fine,  dark  eyes,  and,  dropping 
your  manners,  you  turn  to  stare 
adoringly  after  her. 

Oh,  dear!  she  too  looks  around — 
to  see  the  details  of  your  gown  in 
the  back! 

The  Mexican  man  is  admirable. 
Hardly  as  nice  as  Kinelm  Chillingly 
or  any  of  those  other  grandiloquent 
old  prigs  of  course,  yet  still  adorable. 

In  this  era  even  the  unreasonable 
spinsters  admit  that  there  should  be 


1 88  Mexico  City 

plenty  of  nice  men  in  every  well- 
regulated  community  and  landscape. 
They  are  so  decorative  or  so  useful. 

The  Men  of  Mexico  are  really 
quite  as  terrible  as  an  army  with 
banners,  when  you  happen  to  be  in 
one  of  your  sixteenth-century  moods 
— you  forget  all  about  Walter  Raleigh 
and  Charles  Grandison.  For  they  are 
such  picturesque  composites  of  heroic 
old  Aztec  caciques  (they,  I  under- 
stand, were  very  admirable)  and  of 
daring  Spanish  explorers  and  lord- 
lings  and  of  gay  and  graceful  French 
counts  and  lots  of  such  people  as 
you  once  met  everywhere  between 
book-covers. 

But  then,  moods  vary  and  there 
are  times— no  matter  what  the  land- 
scape— when  one  really  appreciates 


An  Idler's  Note-Book          189 

conversation  with  a  man  whose 
idea  of  Woman  is  never  for  one 
little  minute  according  to  Schopen- 
hauer. Then  sometimes,  and  a  great 
deal  depends  upon  the  background, 
it  is  exquisite  to  listen  to  unhurried 
and  very  involved  compliments,  such 
as  men  with  a  touch  of  latinity 
know  best  how  to  compose — and  to 
speculate  all  the  time  how  very  hor- 
rified the  framers  thereof  would  be, 
could  they  only  read  your  Philistine 
thoughts  as  you  dutifully  smile  and 
smile  like  a  pleased  saw-dust  doll. 
Mexican  men  are  agile  and  hand- 
some— usually  in  a  small  and  unim- 
pressive way — and  they  have  a  great 
deal  of  beautiful  manner,  and  they 
are  always  extremely  decorative.  But 
I  do  wish  their  ball-clothes  still  in- 


Mexico  City 

eluded  slashed  jackets  with  silver 
buttons  and  large,  tinkling  spurs 
and  daggers  with  magic  hieroglyphs 
on  the  blade. 

To  them  American  women  are 
but  riddles  and  American  men  un- 
painted  savages. 

It  is  not,  I  arn  quite  sure,  the 
dearth  of  elevators  and  pie  and 
soda-fountains  and  hot,  breads  and 
ice-water  and  telephones  that  makes 
all  American  -  bred  young  women 
doubtful  as  to  their  permanent  con- 
tentment in  a  glorious  country  like 
Mexico. 

Is  it  the  absence  of  civilized, 
educated  men  who  know  how  to 
talk  and  to  not  talk  to  the  fairly 
intelligent  and  self-respecting  human 
beings  that  happen  to  be  feminine? 


An  Idler's  Note-Book         191 

In  the  way  of  a  little  personal 
confession  and  an  unwilling  one,  I 
myself  had  been  so  absorbed  in  my 
dreamings  and  my  bargainings  in 
the  Thieves'  Market  that  I  had  quite 
forgotten  to  compare  the  Mexic  and 
American  type  of  Man. 

But  one  day,  in  the  thick  of  a 
gorgeous  Mexican  crowd,  this  dis- 
graceful mental  'lapse  promptly 
ended.  For  it  there  happened  that 
I  beheld  two  tall  men  (I  just  knew 
they  were  Americans)  collide  with 
great  force  and  each  other.  Mirac- 
ulously, it  was  not  a  total  wreck. 
I  paused  in  amazement.  Then  great 
and  very  distinctly  spontaneous  was 
my  joy,  when  I  heard  those  two 
men  exclaim  in  perfectly  lovely 
nineteenth-century  English : 


192  Mexico  City 

1  'Great  Caesar's  Ghost!  What  are 
you  doing  down  in  this  neck  of 
woods?" 

44 Well,  God  bless  my  old  soul! 
I'm  glad  to  see  you!  Shake!" 

Now  this  was  not  spectacular,  and 
it  was  not  exquisitely  picturesque 
like  the  other  Mexican  street-greet- 
ings, yet  it  directly  appealed  to  me 
and  made  me  think  about  things. 

It  is  in  Mexico  inelegant  for  even 
a  servant  to  hurry,  and  so,  as  I 
sauntered  by  with  extreme  nonchal- 
ance and  an  unshed  tear  of  sym- 
pathy, I  easily  discerned  that  those 
big  aliens  were  mighty  homesick. 
But  they  knew  it  not,  and,  in  their 
blindness,  what  could  they  do  but 
just  blame  the  infernal  country? 
And  then  as  I  walked  on  and 


An  Idler's  Note-Book          193 

grieved  over  their  sinful  inapprecia- 
tion  of  the  goodly  land  (they  said 
it  was  musty  and  God-forsaken), 
I  was  made  to  recall  anew  the 
brusqueness  and  the  deep  good- 
nature and  the  beautiful  sincerity 
of  the  masculine  type  of  the  dear 
and  far  country  of  which  I  had 
dreamed  at  night. 

It  was  near  the  Alameda  that  I 
detected  in  the  rainbow  crowd  a  m^n 
hustling  his  little  daughter  along  in 
the  real  American  style,  dragging 
her  through  so  much  that  amazed 
her,  so  much  that  made  her  wide- 
eyed.  It  was  perfectly  apparent  that 
he  was  an  American,  a  man  of 
purpose  and  not  too  much  poetr)% 
and  even  before  he  half  turned  and, 
in  the  thick  of  that  Mexican  babel, 


194  Mexico  City 

shouted  unto  her  thus:  "Come  on, 
kid — come  on!  come  on!  Here!  give 
that  old  tramp  two-bits.  Now,  come 
along!" 

I  am  sure  I  cannot  tell  why  this 
conspicuous  haste  and  this  additional 
bit  of  nineteenth-century  English 
quite  enchanted  me;  but  I  discov- 
ered that  I  yearned  to  shake  that 
big  man  by  the  paw, — that  I  wanted 
to  hunt  up  an  ice-cream  soda  for 
the  little  daughter. 

But,  again  bowing  to  wretched 
conventionalism  even  in  a  strange 
land,  I  sadly  meandered  past  my 
fellow-citizen,  who,  I  observed,  again 
broke  schedule  time,  at  the  com- 
mand of  the  small  girl,  to  buy  out 
an  old  coral-bead  woman. 

That    man     was    from     our     own 


An  Idler's  Note-Book          195 

magnificent  West — of  that  I  was 
sure.  His  were  the  lines  about  the 
eyes  and  mouth  that  come  to  him 
and  who  knows  life  in  the  open 
country,  unfenced,  untrammeled, — 
and  who,  far  from  the  chattering 
crowds,  turns  "his  face  to  the  sun- 
set and  thinks  quietly.  Oh !  what  'Aa 
lot  of  things  we  could  have  talked 
about  (in  English!)  down  there  in 
Mexico,  even  in  just  fifteen  min- 
utes! 

He  could  have  told  me  the  war- 
news  and  of  the  last  flop  of  the 
foreign  powers  and  of  some  start- 
ling invention  and  of  split-ups  in 
Congress  and  of  some  brand-new 
book  in  the  millionth  edition!  He 
might  have  lacked  graceful  hand 
flourishes  and  pretty  bows  and  light- 


196  Mexico  City 

ning-change  facial  expressions,  but 
(I'll  wager  every  ancient  idol  I  got 
out  at  the  Pyramid  of  the  Sun  one 
perfect  day)  he  would  have  talked 
to  me  as  to  a  rational  member  of 
the  species. 

And  so  I  have  indulged  the  hope 
that  those  three  Yankees  of  that 
afternoon  walk  did  not  tarry  long  in 
our  sister  republic.  For  nice  Amer- 
ican men  sometimes  deteriorate  in 
Mexico,  and,  in  process  of  time, 
come  to  look  upon  their  sister's  place 
in  American  society  as  quite  too 
exalted.  Some  of  them  announce 
their  entire  willingness  to  shut  her 
up  in  dizzy  towers  and  convents,  or 
to  hire  an  old  woman  to  watch  her 
when  she  goes  to  prayer-meeting  or 
to  buy  darning-cotton.  Some  men 


An  Idler's  Note-Book          197 

forget    that    a     nation     cannot    rise 
higher  than   its  mothers. 

But  Mexico.  Wherever  I  wan- 
dered, Mexico  proved  herself  so 
direct  in  sympathy  and  so  resource- 
ful. For  every  gray  moment,  she 
gave  me  a  whole  hour  of  rose- 
color. 

If  I  failed  to  see  the  Southern 
Cross,  I  at  least  was  so  happy  as 
to  behold  trees  decorated  with  great 
bunches  of  intensely  scarlet  orchids. 
If  the  volcanoes  did  persistently 
swathe  their  heads  in  chiffon  veils 
of  gray  cloud;  if  the  yellow  fever 
did  detain  us  this  side  of  the  tierra 
caliente,  I  could  count  unexpected 
favors  in  the  way  of  Murillos  and 
Van  Dyckes  and  Guido  Renis  and 


198  Mexico  City 

Teniers  the  Elder — and  adventure- 
some jaunts  to  little  story-book  towns 
with  names  so  Aztec  and  histories 
so  thrilling  as  to  petrify  with  many 
an  amazement. 

If  I  walked  three  miles  with  two 
cameras  and  then  found  the  sun  on 
the  wrong  side  of  the  street,  I  was 
sure  on  my  way  back  to  chance 
upon  some  old-time  palace  or  church 
or  fountain  that  was  simply  unfor- 
getable. 

If  my  friends  in  the  States  forgot 
my  existence  and  wrote  me  no  let- 
ters I  had  only  to  go  out  into  the 
( highways  and  compensate  myself 
discovering  their  Mexican  doubles. 
I  found  many  of  them,  for  there 
are  but  a  few  distinct  types  and  I 
suppose  they  are  universal,  nation- 


An  Idler's  Note-Book          199 

ality  and  environment  being  so 
largely  an  accident. 

If  it  rained  pitchforks,  when  I 
had  planned  to  stroll  and  to  listen 
to  the  boom  and  the  shiver  of  the 
mighty  Santa  Maria  Guadalupe,  or 
to  hear  the  band  play  to  the  masses 
in  the  moonlit  Zocalo — with  the  great 
Cathedral  and  the  National  Palace 
looking  like  piles  of  purest  marble 
in  the  white  radiance, — I  merely 
rubbed  my  ring  and  awaited  de- 
velopments. 

Results  varied,  but  the  genie  un- 
failingly appeared. 

And  then,  one  soulless  day,  I  was 
made  to  realize  that  in  order  to 
prevent  serious  planetary  disturb- 
ances and  a  shut-down  of  the  whole 


2OO  Mexico  City 

economic  machinery  of  America,  I 
must  be  in  a  certain  corner  of  the 
United  States  within  just  five  days. 
It  was  unspeakably  dreadful,  but  I 
roused  me  from  the  lethargy  that 
was  a  delight  and  was  glad  that  the 
utmost  haste  was  required  of  me. 

There  never  would  have  been 
time  in  this  life  for  goodbyes  to 
my  Mexico. 

It  all  seemed  so  dear  and  so 
familiar  to  me. 

How  could  I  ever  leave  all  those 
fascinating  market  scenes  and  the 
lovely  old  churches  with  flying  but- 
tresses and  weeds  blossoming  high 
on  the  roofs? 

Then  there  was  that  princely 
garden  with  the  peacocks,  where  I 
had  so  often  loitered,  waiting  for  a 


An  Idler's  Note-Book          201 

Rosetti  or  a  Burne-Jones  damsel  who 
never  appeared. 

Could  my  fine,  aesthetic  nature 
ever  again  endure  to  be  awakened 
early  in  the  morning  by  aught  save 
the  pleasant  music  of  the  bells  on 
the  old  church  of  the  Profesa?  I 
realized  there  would  be  infinite  and 
unlovely  tests. 

And  then,  always  and  ever,  it 
would  be  oh!  for  a  breath  of  gar- 
denias fresh  from  the  hot  lands  ! 
And  violets  from  near  the  Hill  of 
the  Star! 

There  was  my  view  from  the  old 
cathedral-tower,  with  the  snail-shell 
stairway  and  the  giant  bells — and,  far 
below — the  thick,  bright  crowds,  with 
the  music,  the  color,  the  sunlight. 

Far    to    the    north,    out    near    the 


2O2  Mexico  City 

maguey-plantations,  bloomed  Nature's 
own  gardens  for  the  little  peon 
women  and  children — acres  of  wild 
pink  cosmos  and  long  stretches,  big 
patches,  strips  and  dots  of  scarlet, 
of  blue  and  of  orange.  I  could 
never  forget  those  brown,  gentle 
people  and  those  miles  and  miles 
of  flowers. 

Yes,  Mexico,  my  Mexico,  had 
been  very  rich  in  loveliness. 

Travelers  have  long  told  us  the 
tale  that  Mexico,  the  land  of  amaz- 
ing contrasts,  is  the  most  pictur- 
esque country  under  the  sun — and 
now  I  have  some  little  reason  to 
believe  that  this  is  truth. 

In  the  still  of  many  summer  noons 
to  come,  I  know  I  shall  dream  much, 


An  Idler's  Note-Book          203 

grieving  and  rejoicing,  about  this 
beautiful  neighbor  of  ours  with  the 
tragic  history,  —  the  goodly  place 
where  no  one  is  in  an  unseemly 
haste  and  where  unconcern  for  life's 
exigencies  is  in  inverse  ratio  to  the 
need. 

And  sometimes,  to  the  poor  Amer- 
ican pilgrim,  jaded  with  many  anxi- 
eties, with  many  ambitions,  that 
beautiful  unconcern  is  a  wondrous 
tonic.  He  has  rushed  through  the 
years  quite  too  contemptuous  of  the 
Ideal  Existence  according  to  certain 
old  Greeks  who  knew  all  about  it 
and  of  modern  Mexicans  who  now 
know.  Really,  in  these  days  the  ant 
should  occasionally  go  to  the  slug- 
gard and  she  should  consider  his  ways 
and  be  wise. 


2O4  Mexico  City 

Poverty  in  rags,  against  a  pink 
background  of  crumbling  wall  and 
with  a  hedge  of  aloe,  a  tangle  of 
tropic  greenery  and  mossy  church  - 
domes  in  the  purple  distance,  seems 
to  fascinate  some  people  in  a  de- 
gree extraordinary. 

But  just  let  the  wretched  beggars 
be  decently  clothed,  freshen  the  wall 
with  whitewash,  cut  down  the  weeds, 
stretch  a  barbed- wire  fence  and 
cover  the  shaky  old  church  with 
shingles  or  corrugated-iron — and  those 
very  people  promptly  cease  their 
rhapsodizings  and  grieve  in  a  way 
quite  incomprehensible  to  the  mil- 
lion. 

Yet  am  1,  I  here  shamelessly  and 
impenitently  confess  it,  one  of  the 
mourning  incomprehensibles — one  of 


An  Idler's  Note-Book          205 

those  who  only  with  reluctance  will 
acknowledge  that  Poetry  is  really  a 
poor  and  forsaken  old  thing.  Or 
just  a  legend. 

But  Progress,  this  great,  blatant 
march — though  there  be  many  notes 
harsh  and  discordant — must  really 
not  I  suppose  be  regretted  nor  held 
in  disesteem;  for  we  have  many 
times  assured  our  unhappy  selves 
that  Progress  means  many  splendid 
things,  such  as  a  sturdier  lower 
class,  an  enlightened,  a  well-fed 
one. 

Nevertheless,  the  unfortunates  who 
have  all  along  suspected  that  for 
Commerce  and  Industry  must  we 
everywhere  forego  Beauty  and  Poetry 
will  shortly  languish.  They  will 
mourn  anew  and  of  all  creatures  be 


2o6  Mexico  City 

the  most  dejected  and  wretched. 
For  Mexico,  the  serene  land  where 
unreproached  many  hitherto  did  spend 
in  pleasant  dreamings  their  little 
hour  ere  they  were  hurried  else- 
where, has  at  last  been  entered  by 
the  enemy.  The  shout  of  the  van- 
dal has  already  gone  up.  His  ax 
and  his  pick  are  never  silent  now; 
his  bucket  of  blue  whitewash  is  as 
inexhaustible  as  the  sea. 

The  years  are  relentless,  and  they 
will  bring  many  changes  and  all 
those  nerve-wrecking  things  known 
to  us  poor  moderns  as  Advantages. 
Will  Mexico  be  happier  then?  And 
better?  Or  merely  less  lovely? 

One  can  learn  vastly  important 
things  down  there  in  Mexico.  I 


An  Idler's  Note-Book          207 

learned  that  to  idle  by  the  wayside 
was  as  good  as  to  try  to  get  as 
much  money  as  Hetty  Green  and 
that  to  tranquilly  dream  epics  and 
lyrics  (principally  lyrics)  was  as 
good  as  to  be  as  mentally  restless 
as  a  Corliss  engine. 

Ah!  surely  it  was  only  when 
America  was  younger  and  less  com- 
fortable that  it  was  right  to  lead  a 
life  of  such  furious  industry — to  look 
upon  Pleasure  only  as  a  heresy. 

So  I  did  strike  my  breast  and 
cry  Alack!  when,  in  the  Land  of 
the  Noontide  Calm,  I  heard  that 
penetrating  voice  of  Dame  Duty; 
and,  with  all  those  tender  farewells 
of  mine  unsaid,  with  memories  of 
many  marvelous  things  and  with  a 


2o8  Mexico  City 

readjusted  Theory  of  Averages,  I 
turned  and  came  again  into  my 
own  country. 


THE    END 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 
BERKELEY 

Return  to  desk  from  which  borrowed. 
This  book  is  DUE  on  the  last  date  stamped  below. 


•?* 


JUN  01 1987 

AUTO.  DISC. 


'00 

C7O 


.OOm-9,'48  (B399sl6)476 


YA  0107 


BOQ30045B5 

~;'."- " 

M315979 


